Twenty-four University of Miami research teams have received rapid response grants to undertake innovative projects that will provide critical information about the novel coronavirus.

Imagine this: developing an oral rinse test to detect COVID-19 earlier, creating a behavior therapy program for parents so that they do not pass on the stress they are feeling to their children during the pandemic, and gauging the effects of COVID-19 on pregnant women and trying to determine the impacts on their new babies.

These are just a few of the 24 projects recently awarded rapid response grants from the University of Miamis Office of the Vice Provost for Research. The grants, which range from $5,000 to $40,000, require faculty members and students to develop and execute research that will somehow broaden our understanding of COVID-19 and begin to mitigate its impacts within the next four months.

Our idea was to take advantage of researchers creativity and commitment in tackling some of the most pressing problems around the COVID-19 epidemic, said John Bixby, vice provost for research and professor of molecular and cellular pharmacology and neurological surgery. We challenged them to examine the effects of the pandemic on multiple aspects of peoples livesnot just the physical ones, but the social aspects, the economic ones, and the environmental.

With just 10 days to submit proposals, faculty members across the university flooded the office with applications and more than 70 ideas were submitted. Each award was reviewed by three individuals, and the awardees were selected based on novelty, potential impact on the effort to combat COVID-19, and whether the study could be completed in short turnaround time.

The faculty response was inspiring, said Erin Kobetz, co-vice provost for research. There was a level of innovation across multiple disciplines that demonstrates an institutional commitment to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. We look forward to the outcomes of those applications that were funded and imagine that they will lead to positive, measurable impact now and in the future.

After the four months are over, teams will be asked to report their progress, Bixby said. Below is a list of all the projects awarded grants:

This team will evaluate the potential benefits of nitric oxide in treating COVID-19 utilizing the iNOpulse technology, which may potentially allow future patients to be treated outside of the hospital.

Principal investigator: Roger Alvarez, assistant professor of clinical medicine,

This team will develop a novel vaccine to protect against the current coronavirus pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. Its strategy involves replacing the envelope glycoprotein (G) of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) with the spike of COVID-19. The resulting virus will form the basis of a vaccine to generate neutralizing antibody to the SARS-CoV-2 spike that could prevent disease if exposed to the real virus.

Principal investigator: Glen Barber, professor and chair of cell biology

This study will exploit the enzyme TMPRSS2 as a potential link between androgen receptors and COVID-19 by providing preliminary data on whether certain drugscalled androgen receptor antagoniststhat are effective and safe for treating prostate cancer, might also be effective in treating COVID-19.

Principal investigator: Kerry Burnstein, professor of molecular and cellular pharmacology

Artist Xavier Cortada will develop a socially engaged art platform online to mitigate stress related to COVID-19 infection and/or social distancing. He is also working to develop participatory art projects and an online message mural to capture stories from individuals across South Florida as they are affected by the pandemic. https://cortadaprojects.org/projects/corona/

Principal investigator: Xavier Cortada, professor of practice, art and art history

Public health emergencies pose huge challenges to the behavioral health system, and consequences on the psychosocial well-being of people in at-risk communities largely go overlooked. This project will first identify community psychosocial needs and then create and disseminate a multilingual COVID-19 online toolkit and resource hub to mitigate negative mental health outcomes throughout the pandemic.

Principal investigator: Bridget Davidson, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics

This team will develop a prototype for a socially engaging online experience targeting vulnerable and older adults where future University live cultural offerings could benefit from a secondary virtual platform.

Principal investigator: Joy Doan, head of Marta and Austin Weeks Music Library

Since parental stress during disasters or quarantine may be associated with child traumatic stress and/or subsequent incidents of abuse or neglect, this study will examine how parent-directed telehealth interventions using motivational, opposite action, and mindfulness strategies can be deployed during crisis situations to mitigate risk for parents exhibiting mental health concerns during our current COVID-19 pandemic.

Principal investigator: Jill Ehrenreich-May, professor of psychology

This project will enable the development of an oral rinse test that detects COVID-19 earlier and saves lives by directing resources and quarantine efforts to patients who need them most. Researchers will perform testing with the current prototype on a confirmed COVID-19 patient to determine the best antigen and concentration.

Principal investigator: Elizabeth Franzmann, associate professor of otolaryngology

This team will take blood samples from asymptomatic health care personnel working in any patient care capacity in three high-risk medical specialtiesotolaryngology, anesthesiology, and ophthalmologyand examine them for the presence of immunity. The results could help South Florida hospitals consider strategies for resource and personnel deployment.

Principal investigator: Michael Hoffer, professor of otolaryngology and neurological surgery

This team will gather data and insight on loneliness and other behaviors in the wake of CDC recommendations for social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results will demonstrate the effects of this public health crisis on loneliness, as well as other psychosocial symptoms. The team will also assist public health professionals in preparation for post-pandemic interventions and future global health emergencies.

Principal investigator: Viviana Horigian, associate professor of public health sciences

More than 20 models of the viral protease (which if targeted, might stop the virus) have been openly shared on Twitter, prompting labs around the world to begin a collective search for protease inhibitors. This project will provide a cheap, accessible screening test for characterizing potential protease inhibitors and use the available crystal structures to develop effective protease inhibitors through computational techniques.

Principal investigator: Daniel Isom, assistant professor, molecular and cellular pharmacology

Researchers will investigate the ability to detect the COVID-19 virus in donor allograft tissue and frozen tissue. They will also attempt to determine whether the COVID-19 virus in the donor tissue is associated with transmission to the recipient and influences short- or long-term survival, as well as the health of the recipient.

Principal investigators: Hugo Kaneku Nagahama, assistant professor, surgery and Phillip Ruiz, professor of surgery and pathology and director of Transplantation Laboratories and immunopathology

Partnering with Breakthrough Miami, a community-based academic enrichment organization for low-income students, this study will contact families involved with this organization to understand the educational and health-related challenges as a result of COVID-19. Researchers will also investigate the role of community-based organizations in the mitigation of stress related to the concerns of infection and social distancing.

Principal Investigator: Laura Kohn Wood, dean and professor in the School of Education and Human Development.

Ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctors play a key role in the treatment of COVID-19, but they are at high risk of exposure. This team will identify ENT issues in COVID-19 patients at the University of Miami and Jackson Memorial Hospital and evaluate new approaches to case identification and health care worker protection.

Principal investigator: Xue Liu, professor and Marian and Walter Hotchkiss Endowed Chair in otolaryngology

Mindfulness training has emerged as an effective program to enhance cognitive functioning, improve psychological and physical health, and to reduce loneliness in young to mid-aged adults. But little is known about its effects in elderly adults. This proposal aims to offer mindfulness training via online delivery to elderly adults and to assess the trainings potential to protect against cognitive decline and degradation in psychological and physical health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Principal investigator: Ekaterina Ninova (Denkova), research assistant professor, psychology

Individuals who have hypertension, diabetes, or underlying cardiovascular disease have higher rates of mortality from COVID-19 than the average person. Patients with these diseases have a high likelihood of being prescribed ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) in order to treat their underlying ailments. This project will examine whether there is a link between drugs that are given to patients with hypertension, coronary artery disease, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease and the outcomes of COVID-19 patients.

Principal investigator: Savita Pahwa, professor, microbiology and immunology

This project aims to determine the rate of COVID-19 positivity among pregnant women and their newborns delivering at a tertiary care center in Miami with the highest rates of coronavirus in Florida. They also want to identify cases of maternal transmission of COVID-19, which is critical to establish treatment guidelines, while also answering questions about disease progression, perinatal transmission, and effects on the newborn.

Principal investigator: JoNell Potter, professor of clinical, obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive services

This team will test, evaluate, and create new reusable mask designs for use in the health care setting to limit exposure and protect medical personnel and first responders who treat coronavirus patients. The aim is to provide masks to workers within the University of Miami and Jackson Memorial Hospital first. Finalized mask designs can be shared with other medical facilities.

Principal investigator: Carl Schulman, executive dean for research and professor

This project hopes to develop a deep learning program that could classify X-ray or CT scan imaging characteristics in COVID-19 patients that could help radiologists categorize them into those patients who require hospitalization, those who will need Intensive Care Unit admission, and those at risk for death. In addition, such a deep learning network could be used to predict the patients response to current experimental drugs.

Principal investigator: Radka Stoyanova, research professor in radiation oncology

This project aims to understand the relationship between cardiac injury and COVID-19 severity. The team will conduct an extensive evaluation of 50 patients with a new COVID-19 infection who require hospital admission and will test myocardial injury and inflammatory biomarkers, use cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR), and offer a social determinants of health survey. Blood will be saved for future biomarker discovery and genomic evaluation.

Principal investigator: Leonardo Tamariz, professor of medicine

While respiratory distress dominates acute symptoms of COVID-19, ruptures in the brains capillary cells accompanied by bleeding within the brain have fatal consequences in patients with COVID-19.Moreover, impacts of COVID-19 on the brain depend largely on the ability of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to leak in through brain capillaries, the cells of which express the SARS-CoV-2 receptor (ACE2). This study is based on the hypothesis that interaction of the virus with ACE2 disrupts the normal barrier function of brain capillary cells, and induces inflammatory responses derived from these cells.

Principal Investigator: Michal Toborek, vice-chair for research and professor, biochemistry and molecular biology

Given the surfeit of social media data accompanying the recent outbreak of COVID-19, this group will take a computational and big data-driven approach to uncovering information about viral transmission, social sentiment and response, decision-making, and public health policy recommendations. The group proposes to develop algorithm(s), as well as an online early alert system, to provide early warnings for disease surveillance tied to geographical data.

Principal investigator: Nicholas Tsinoremas, director of the Institute for Data Science and Computing

This team will investigate Florida citizens opinions on COVID-19, including their thoughts about the causes and consequences of the pandemic, their preferred sources of information, and subsequent behavior changes. They will also assess public perceptions of government responses to COVID-19 to determine how Floridians change their perceptions and behaviors over time in response to changing policies, messaging, and conditionsparticularly if they or someone they know becomes ill. This will be one of very few studies to track a statewide populations opinions, lifestyle factors, and health behaviors during an ongoing pandemicwith clear implications for policymakers, health communicators, and disaster specialists.

Principal investigator: Joseph Uscinski, associate professor of political science

Because young adults appear to experience fewer cases of the COVID-19 virus, this population may engage in behaviors that contribute to the spread of COVID-19. Yet, little is known about the impact of COVID-19 on adolescent mental and physical health and their substance-use behaviors. This project hopes to collect epidemiologic data on the patterns of mental and physical health, substance use (frequency and dose), and potential disease transmission behaviors among young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Principal investigator: Denise Vidot, assistant professor in the School of Nursing and Health Studies

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Fast-tracked research projects aim to respond quickly to mitigate effects of COVID-19 - University of Miami

HER2-positive breast cancer may be a misnomer, according to a growing body of evidence that one of the most widely recognized oncogenes, HER2, may not be the primary driver of the disease. The research, which comes from several groups including Genentech, makers of the prevailing anti-HER2 treatment, has researchers questioning whether current clinical guidelines for classifying and treating breast cancer may be off the mark. New classification schemes may better identify those patients more likely to benefit from anti-HER2 treatment, or point to therapies that might be more effective.

HER2 is short for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2. Researchers discovered HER2 breast cancer in the 1980s. Too many copies of the HER2 gene or its overexpression appeared to cause an especially aggressive form of the disease. By the late 90s, a drug called Herceptin that targeted the HER2 receptor, sped into the clinic on the US Food and Drug Administrations new fast-track status. As Dana-Farber Cancer Institute oncologist Harold Burstein put it a couple of years ago, HER2 breast cancer, once the most feared type of the disease, had gone from worst to first, largely because of Herceptin.

After analyzing multiple, published genomic data sets, researchers at Genentech, which makes Herceptin, reported in 2018 that there was no evidence that HER2 amplification represents a breast cancer subtype.

About 14 percent of breast cancers are HER2-positive, a diagnosis largely based on immunohistochemical staining to reveal an overabundance of HER2 receptors spanning the cancer cells membranes, with ambiguous cases decided by testing for an abnormally high HER2 gene copy number. The American Society of Clinical Oncology recommends Herceptin as the first-line treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer. In the US, tens of thousands of patients receive Herceptin each year. Recently, however, researchersincluding those from Herceptin maker Genentechhave begun to reconsider the HER2-positive subtype.

In the HER2-centric model of breast cancer, highly dysregulated HER2 signaling drives uncontrolled cell growth. HER2-positive breast cancers carry as many as 50 copies of the HER2 gene, compared with just two in noncancerous cells, and the gene can be highly expressed, leading to HER2 protein levels as much as 40- to 100-fold higher than normal.

But after analyzing multiple, published genomic datasets, researchers at Genentech reported in 2018 that there was no evidence that HER2 amplification (and, by extension, HER2 overabundance) represents a breast cancer subtype at all. HER2 amplification by itself seemed to have a negligible influence on the expression of genes thought to be mediated by the HER2 signaling. Rather, HER2 amplification was associated with upregulation of genes governed by androgen receptor (AR) signaling, which orchestrates the actions of testosterone and related hormones and is often boosted in breast cancer. This link between HER2 amplification and AR signaling suggests the androgen receptor may play a bigger role in the disease than previously recognized.

Other researchers have similarly reevaluated breast cancers using transcriptional profiles that look at gene expression across the genome, rather than focusing on individual genes thought to have large effect. The resulting subtypes require a more nuanced view of HER2 or dont include HER2 at all.

[T]he whole state of subdividing and classifying breast cancers is in a state of flux, says Larry Norton, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center who played a key role in the clinical trials establishing HER2-positive breast cancer as a subtype and Herceptin as the first drug for treating it. Were in a molecular era now, so we think we know more.

The conventional view of HER2 breast cancer that guides current clinical practice has been under pressure for some time. While most researchers remain convinced that HER2 is a clear driver of some breast cancers, Herceptin by itself struggled to knock down HER2-positive tumors in early clinical trials. It was the synergy with [the chemotherapy drug] paclitaxel that really put the drug on the map, says Norton, who was involved in the early trials of the combination therapy. Had we focused in on trastuzumab [Herceptin] as a single agent . . . the drug would have been abandoned.

Norton was the senior author of the published trial that led to FDA approval of Herceptin for advanced breast cancer in 1998. However, that trial did not actually demonstrate that the combination of Herceptin and paclitaxel, a type of chemotherapy drug known as a taxane, was superior to paclitaxel alone in increasing survival. Only when the data were combined with separate trial arms testing non-taxane chemotherapy with and without Herceptin did the researchers see a statistically significant difference in survival.

In addition, the two trials that led to Herceptins 2006 approval for early breast cancer later cast doubt on HER2 as a biomarker for response to the drug. A 2007 reanalysis of one of the trials found no statistical interaction between patients HER2 status and whether they benefitted from Herceptin. A similar reanalysis of the second trial corroborated this result: [Herceptin] benefit seemed independent of HER2 amplification, the researchers wrote in their report.

In 2000, a group at the Stanford University School of Medicine used state-of-the-art microarray technology to propose molecular subtypes of breast cancer based on the expression of more than 8,000 genes in biopsies from 42 patients. While the researchers identified a molecular signature for a HER2-based subtype, it wasnt strictly based on overabundance of the HER2 receptor or high HER2 copy numbers in the genome. Rather, they used the expression patterns from nearly 500 genes as indicators of the activation of the HER2 signaling pathway.

Breast cancer tissue stained for HER2 using antibody clone IHC002

The new subtype, which the team later dubbed HER2-enriched (HER2E), fractured the HER2 classification: a tumor might be HER2-positive based on the classical methods but not show evidence of HER2-mediated signaling activity at the transcriptional level. Only 47 percent of HER2-amplified tumors are HER2E, a concordance the 2018 paper from Genentech calls remarkably weak. Margaret Gatti-Mays of the National Cancer Institute estimates that 30 percent to 40 percent of tumors classified as HER2E tumors are not clinically HER2-positive.

A number of research groups have found no HER2-based subtype at all. In a 2005 paper, Richard Iggo, then at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research, and colleagues performed experiments similar to those that had identified the molecular subtypes put forward by the Stanford researchers in 2000. Iggos team found that the previously discovered HER2 group did not appear to be defined by HER2, but by genes that looked like they might be related to androgen signaling, says Iggo, now at INSERM and the University of Bordeaux in France.

Similarly, in their 2018 study from Genentech, Anneleen Daemen and Gerard Manning found that AR activity is a key part of the HER2E subtype. HER2-enriched is not HER2-driven, per se. Its rather the androgen signaling, says Daemen, now head of translational medicine at ORIC Pharmaceuticals. You have androgen signaling that is massively on . . . and that is regardless of whether the HER2-enriched tumor is also HER2-positive or not.

Gerard Tarulli, an endocrinology researcher at the University of Melbourne who was not involved in the study, explains that this may be because the androgen receptor can play a role similar to the estrogen receptor (ER), which, in the most common form of breast cancer, drives tumor growth. In HER2E tumors, AR signaling is thought to replace ER as the driver, with the androgen receptor almost physically substituting for the presence of the estrogen receptor, says Tarulli.

Iggo and his colleagues called for the HER2E subtype to be renamed molecular apocrine to reflect a pathology very different from a HER2-centric model of disease, one that appears to involve signaling by AR and perhaps other pathways as well. The thing thats slightly disappointing for me, says Iggo, [is that] rather than changing the name . . . [the Stanford team] just said HER2-enriched, which perpetuates the idea that [HER2 amplification] defines a biological subtype.

Daemen agrees. When they originally defined these subtypes, they should not have used the word HER2-enriched because thats misleading, she says. [The nomenclature is] so ingrained in the research thats happening for breast cancer that people really hold on to it. . . . The field at large has not questioned those subtypes or deviated from them as much as is happening in other fields or other cancer types. The Stanford team did not respond to The Scientists request for comment.

Which subtypes are real is a very difficult question, says Tarulli. One recently published breast cancer scheme includes seven types, three of which could be considered subsets of the traditional HER2-positive categorization, while yet another research group has proposed 10 molecular subtypes, including one that pertains to HER2-type disease.

According to Daemen, her work was closely followed by the clinicians and the biomarker scientists who were running trials in breast and gastric cancers. I worked closely with the clinical teams at Genentech at that time to see if we could explain why some patients in our trials were not responding as well to anti-HER2 agents because of AR expression, for example. However, Daemen left Genentech last fall and says, to my knowledge, there is no additional research that is being undertaken [at the company] as a result of this. Genentech spokesperson Kayla Bruneau says that the company did not have any researchers available to discuss the [Daemen and Manning] paper at this time.

For now, clinical practice continues in strict adherence to the HER2-positive subtype as classically defined. HER2 receptor overabundance or HER2amplification has been validated as a biomarker of clinical effect for HER2-targeting therapies, Gatti-Mays says in a statement emailed to The Scientist. But the diversity of subtypes churned out by recent molecular analyses has thrown the field for a loop.

We thought that there should be some underlying molecular characteristic that is shared by all the HER2-positive breast tumors, and that turned out not to be the case, says Daemen. This absence of HER2-related biology in HER2-positive tumors seems to clash with how targeted therapies, including anti-HER2 treatments, are thought to work, namely, by interrupting a well-understood, cancer-driving pathway.

If you can demonstrate that adding a HER2 enrichment analysis in terms of clinical decision-making improves patient outcomes, then that classification needs to go in.

Gerard Tarulli, University of Melbourne

HER2E in particular is gaining traction as a possible subtype to consider for eventual clinical use. According to a meta-analysis published earlier this year, HER2E patients show a stronger clinical benefit from anti-HER2 therapies than other molecular subtypes. Tarulli says the inclusion of HER2E in future clinical trials of anti-HER2 therapies makes a lot of sense, because now were understanding more about the mechanisms behind what [HER2] is doing.

Once clinical trial data start rolling in, researchers can make a more informed decision, he says. If you can demonstrate that adding a HER2 enrichment analysis in terms of clinical decision-making improves patient outcomes, then that classification needs to go in. Tarulli also says that for HER2E patients, inhibiting both the androgen receptor and HER2 makes a lot of sense and will probably increase the effect of both. The authors of the meta-analysis did not respond to a request for comment.

Daemen disagrees with using HER2E to decide who gets anti-HER2 therapy, which can have heart-related side effects, in a clinical trial. If you were to base treatment decisions on the HER2-enriched label of a tumor, you would do harm, rather, in patients that lack HER2 amplification.

HER2E is an interesting subgroup, agrees Gatti-Mays, but [m]ore information is needed about the long-term clinical outcomes of these HER2E patients.

Still, earlier conceptions might be falling away, Norton says. The simplistic notionHER2 is a signaling molecule, you blockade, stop the signaling, so you get apoptosis rather than going into cell division[that] all makes sense, but it could be wrong.

Robert Fortner is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Oregon. Email him atrobertwfortner@gmail.comor follow him on Twitter@robertfortner1.

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Who Benefits from Herceptin and Other Anti-HER2 Cancer Therapies? - The Scientist

For the millions of people in the job market during this COVID-19 pandemic, the task is daunting: Find work in a historically bad economy.

The class of 2008 understands the problem well. They lived it, trying to join the workforce during the Great Recession.

Weve had to make a lot of sacrifices that a lot of people probably arent used to, said Christopher Brown, a 2008 University of South Florida graduate.

At the height of the recession, in 2010, the unemployment rate for young people hit a record-high 19.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Workers like Brown who found jobs still faced challenges different than prior generations. They were more likely to settle for smaller paychecks and less likely to risk jumping to other, better-paying jobs as the recovery crawled along, according to Brookings Institute economist Gary Burtless.

COVID-19s long-term economic effects wont be known for years. And because the pandemic upended everything, soon-to-be graduates have had to focus more on finding housing and finishing school virtually than securing jobs.

Career education and career services are on the low end of the totem pole for these students, said Christian Garcia, the associate dean and executive director of the University of Miamis Toppel Career Center.

But when employment rises on their priority lists, they can look to Great Recession graduates for perspective. The Tampa Bay Times spoke with 10 of them to reflect on the job-hunting challenges they faced a dozen years ago.

Their advice: Broaden your search. Expand your network. Invest in yourself. Reset your expectations. And, most of all, remember that this, too, shall pass.

Curtiss Gibson, 40, nonprofit fundraising, New York

Gibson was the first college graduate in his family, earning an English degree from USF. He wasnt picky where he landed. Florida. New York. Illinois. Wherever.

I needed any job, Gibson said.

The Clearwater native sent out at least 147 resumes and got three serious looks. A lifestyle magazine publisher in New York hired him as an editorial assistant for $30,000 a year.

That November, the firm cut a quarter of the staff and froze wages. The magazine kept Gibson. Four months later, his son was born.

Everyone had to deal with the fact that theyre stuck with their salary, and that person in the cube next to you is gone now, so you do their job. Its absolutely a wild amount of stress.

Gibson left, landing a job in fundraising at the New York Botanical Garden. But hes feeling the stress again, this time from a different vantage point.

Two weeks after Gibson hired a woman from Philadelphia, the pandemic shut everything down. Now, her future is at risk.

I see the impact on her that a lot of people felt in 2008. I have to remember: I did not create the virus. I did not do this. But I feel, like, horrible, absolutely terrible having to tell her.

Jordan McDonald, 35, information technology, Tampa

The Plant City native started a job with business consultant Accenture soon after graduating from the University of Florida with an industrial engineering degree.

Then the economy collapsed. McDonald outlasted the layoffs and survived the do-more-with-less culture. But there are still emotional scars.

I saw senior partners getting let go. These are men and women who had devoted their whole careers to this company. That was a big lesson learned for me, I think, just in terms of companies arent necessarily going to be loyal to you when things get bad.

To prepare for that, McDonald advises the next wave of jobseekers to focus on expanding their network and gaining new skills until the economy recovers.

Hes also trying to keep a broader perspective. Things could always be worse. He still has his job at Tampa Electric. But its hard not to see this as another hit to millennials, those born from the early 1980s to the late 1990s.

I saw a funny meme, said McDonald, who has a 4-year-old child. For our generation, when we were sort of coming of age in high school, 9/11 happened. When we were graduating college, the Great Recession happened. Then when were all starting families, the pandemic happens.

Lara Goldstein, 33, advertising, Miami

Goldstein was apprehensive after graduating with her mass communications degree from USF, but she found a job quickly at a TV production company in Apopka.

The work was freelance, with no set hours, salary or benefits. And after about a year, the company went on hiatus.

It was tough, because they kept telling you, Dont get another job, well have work.'

Goldstein stayed loyal. She worked as a bartender to get by and took the sporadic production days when they were available.

But she couldnt wait forever. Goldstein left for a six-month production job in Miami, moving back in with her parents while still paying rent at an unused apartment in Apopka.

Everyone expects young people to get a job, pay their dues and move on to bigger and better things. At a certain point, dont you want stability?

A 2013 survey by the Federal Reserve Boards Division of Consumer and Community Affairs found that 67 percent of young workers preferred steady employment to higher pay.

Goldstein did, too. She abandoned her production goals to get into advertising similar work, but with commercials instead of TV shows.

Almost 10 years later, shes still there.

Gregory Gibbs, 30, teacher, Largo

Gibbs entered the workforce straight out of Apopka High School and worked at GameStop until he was laid off in 2010.

By then, he was preparing to study secondary education at USF. But he still needed money, and retailers werent hiring.

His delayed pursuit of teaching shapes the advice he would give soon-to-be graduates.

Explore many different types of certification programs and remember that college is not the only path that encourages a successful life. There are many ways to achieve your goals despite the one-sided view of our educational system.

Jennifer Perez, 44, photography, Jacksonville

Perez entered the job market after graduating from the University of Central Florida.

Freelance photography wasnt steady, so she cobbled together odd jobs, juggling three at one point to get by. She even snapped photos of tourists at an alligator farm something she never imagined doing.

You have to get creative."

Eventually, it all paid off. She landed a full-time photography job in 2012 and has been doing it ever since.

Hannah Goodwin, 33, fashion, Tampa

Goodwin moved in with her parents in Houston after earning her communications degree from Virginias Washington and Lee University in 2009. An internship at Anthropologie didnt lead to a job, so she expanded her search. Two months later, she had a fashion internship in New York at a company that folded in 2010.

Her connections led to a job at a start-up where she has worked for the past nine years. She moved to Tampa last year.

Goodwin stayed in the industry because she liked it, but also because she remembered how hard it was to get a job in the first place. Starting over would have been tough, just as it would be now.

Unfortunately, now is not really the time to be so picky."

Timothy Van Emden, 30, engineering, Maryland

Without any major marketable skills, Van Emden didnt see a lot of job opportunities when he graduated from George Jenkins High School in Lakeland. Thats why he enlisted in the Army Reserve.

It taught me a tangible skill and added to my resume."

He works as a system integrator/engineer in Maryland and has this advice: Dont get hung up on locations, titles or salaries.

If you want $65,000 and the job offered $60,000, take the job. The $5,000 will come quickly.

Ruan Cox, 34, healthcare, Tampa

After studying biology and biotechnology at the University of Florida, Cox thought he would get scooped up immediately at a lab somewhere.

But employers wanted lower-risk workers they wouldnt need to train, not new graduates. Some jobs he considered paid only $10 an hour.

So Cox decided to delay his career by investing in himself. He fast-tracked his plan for graduate school.

School was just a safer option than entering the job market."

Five years later, he had a Ph.D. in molecular medicine from USF.

I think I was a little bit jaded," said Cox, now a development manager at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. You spend this money or you get loans then you come out and you cant find a job. Its very demoralizing.

It did work out for me, but until it did, it was a very humbling experience.

Corbin deNagy, 33, higher-education finance, Tallahassee

DeNagy studied finance at Florida State University with the goal of becoming an investment banker in Tampa or Jacksonville. He knew the crash made that impossible, but he didnt realize how hard it would be to find any job.

After a few months, he became an accounting associate at Florida State University a job that required only a high school diploma.

When youre thinking about the finance degree Im going to work in banking, Im going to make a lot of money.' Now, youre making $25,100. But it paid the bills.

DeNagy has a familiar story, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. College graduates in the Great Recession often were underemployed. Only 42 percent of them worked in their field of study, the Federal Reserve Board study said.

Instead of complaining, deNagy got to work. When his supervisor left less than a year later, he took her spot. Now hes the finance director for FSUs College of Human Sciences.

I just went in and tried to prove myself. You have to put your head down and start working, whether you think the job is beneath you or whatever. You just work hard.

Christopher Brown, 33, marketing, Brandon

Browns parents werent sure about the offer he received not long after graduating from USF.

Youre going to move all the way to Miami for a job in sales at a cruise line?

Brown didnt see many options.

If I didnt, it could have been six months, a year of no paycheck, trying to fight for the same handful of jobs everyone else is fighting for."

He made it work.

Brown quickly realized that the cruise lines sales script was too formulaic for him, so he ditched it to focus on building connections what he learned to do as a marketing major. While his colleagues printed thank-you notes, Brown wrote his cards by hand.

You had to put that extra work in, especially in 2009, 2010."

It took three years, but Brown finally got a marketing job in Tampa. Now, in the face of another economic collapse, Brown is vulnerable, again.

He does side work as a travel agent at a time when no one wants to travel. His marketing portfolio in Brandon includes a pair of Chick-fil-A restaurants.

Theyre doing fine but if we shut down, what happens?

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New Delhi:As the world reels from the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, which has also induced an economic recession, there are many working tirelessly at the forefront to tackle the challenge. In India, several women are working round-the-clock, seven days a week, to ensure the smooth functioning of key departments administration, diagnosis, prevention, research and cure.

ThePrint takes a look at some of those leading these efforts.

Preeti Sudan, secretary at the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has been working on aligning all departments to execute the Narendra Modi governments policies to prevent the spread of the disease. Beela Rajesh, health secretary of Tamil Nadu, has been proactive in engaging with citizens through her department and Twitter. The state currently has more than 600 active cases, one of the highest in the country.

Dr Priya Abraham, director of National Institute of Virology, Pune, has made a significant medical breakthrough by isolating the deadly coronavirus. This helps in understanding the disease better and finding treatment regimens.

Dr Nivedita Gupta, senior scientist at Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), is busy designing the treatment and testing protocols for the country while Dr Renu Swarup, secretary, Department of Biotechnology, is spending her time trying to find a vaccine.

Also read: Coronavirus has challenged & changed how worlds top scientists work to find a cure

A 1983 batch IAS officer from the Andhra Pradesh cadre, Sudan is usually seen leaving her office at Nirman Bhawan late at night.

An M.Phil. in Economics and postgraduate in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics, Sudan also served the World Bank in Washington as a consultant.

Her ministry is the nodal agency for fighting the present coronavirus challenge. Sudan, along with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, coordinates with sister departments in the central and state government. The two conduct regular reviews of the evolving situation.

She is also involved in the regular review of preparedness with the states and union territories. Also, she is the first point of contact for any query arising from Prime Minister Narendra Modis office or from the office of Union Minister, said a senior official from her ministry who did not wish to be identified.

She played a major role in the evacuation of the 645 students from Wuhan, China, the official added.

Among her cadre, Sudan has a distinguished track record of serving in finance, disaster management, tourism and agriculture.

Also read: How experts are using maths to stay ahead of the coronavirus

Working in the Division of Epidemiology & Communicable Diseases, and in-charge of viral diseases at the countrys apex health research department, Dr Guptas primary responsibility is building testing and treatment protocols in India.

She was also the primary scientist involved in the investigations and containment of the Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala last year.

An MBBS from Lady Hardinge Medical College, Dr Gupta is the key person to augment the Covid-19 diagnostic capacity all across the country. In the short time span of two months, over 130 laboratories in the government sector and 52 laboratories in the private sector were roped in to diagnose coronavirus cases.

She worked day and night, including Sundays, to investigate the Nipah cases last year. It was not even a pandemic like coronavirus. Nowadays, for several days together, several scientists stay in the office to conclude the investigations, including her, said an official in her department, also on the condition of anonymity.

Gupta has a PhD in molecular medicine from Jawaharlal Nehru University and has been instrumental in setting up the virus research and diagnostic laboratory network of ICMR. This network was established subsequent to the 2009 pandemic influenza outbreak. The Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) network of 106 laboratories is largely considered as the backbone of the nation, and has ensured the capacity to detect the virus in almost all parts of the country.

Dr Gupta has aggressively investigated the viral outbreaks such as enteroviruses, arboviruses (dengue, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis & Zika), influenza, measles and rubella among others. She was part of the team that worked extensively on deciphering the aetiology, and developed management guidelines, for the acute encephalitis syndrome in different parts of India.

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Swarup has been working at the Ministry of Science and Technologys Department of Biotechnology (DBT) for the past 30 years. She held the position of Scientist H which denotes an outstanding scientist until April 2018, when she was appointed as secretary.

A key person in the formulation of the Biotechnology Vision in 2001, the National Biotechnology Development Strategy in 2007 and Strategy II in 2015-20, Swarup is now involved in the crucial research to develop a coronavirus vaccine.

In an interview to ThePrint, Swarup had said that she is busy scaling up the manufacturing capacity of start-ups that have made low-cost testing kits and ventilators for Covid-19.

Her ministry has asked all IIT incubators to focus on research and development of portable ventilators, genome sequencing and isolation of the strain of the novel coronavirus from blood samples.

A PhD in Genetics and Plant Breeding, Swarup is known for promoting women in science, and was a member of the Task Force on Women in Science, which was constituted by the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister.

Also read: 5 new projects India will pursue to find treatment for Covid-19 and similar diseases

Abraham leads the backbone of the country right now the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, which is affiliated to the ICMR. The NIV was initially the only testing centre in the country for Covid-19.

As the number of cases spike on a daily basis, the NIV has succeeded in reducing the testing time of Covid-19 samples to just four hours a sample from 12-14 hours.

The NIV had confirmed the first three positive Covid-19 cases in India. The institute had initially done all the testing, but ICMR subsequently increased the number of laboratories, anticipating a jump in cases. Under Abrahams leadership, theNIV helped these labs with troubleshooting, and ensured reagent supplies to the network of labs.

The achievements which NIV has made at this crucial juncture were not possible without a hardworking and well-coordinated team, Abraham told ThePrint.

Abraham holds an MBBS, MD (Medical Microbiology) and PhD from Christian Medical College in Vellore, where she was also the former head of the department of Clinical Virology at CMC Vellore. She is also a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. On invitation from the Medical Council of India, Abraham also drafted the syllabus for the Doctor of Medicine (DM) in Virology.

Her achievements also include being a key member of the WHOs Guidelines Development Working Group Meeting for Hepatitis and HIV in 2012, and for Hepatitis B in 2014. In 2017, she served as WHO consultant in Myanmar to formulate the National Hepatitis Testing.

Also read: India Covid-19 death rate lower than Italy, UK, but cant play down virus impact: NIV chief

As the health secretary of Tamil Nadu, Rajesh has been at the forefront of tackling the challenge in her state.

A 1997 batch IAS officer, she is known as a media-friendly bureaucrat and is very active on Twitter.

Virus can affect anyone, lets be gentle and sensitive towards each other and wage a coordinated battle against Covid19, she posted recently.

Apart from sharing her thoughts, she also responds to queries directed at her or her department.

An MBBS graduate from Madras Medical College, Beela earlier served as sub-collector of Chengalpattu, commissioner of Fisheries and commissioner of Town and Country Planning in Tamil Nadu. She was also the commissioner of Indian Medicine and Homeopathy before being transferred as the health secretary in 2019.

Tamil Nadu ranks third among all Indian states in the NITI Aayog Health Index given its vastly improved health outcomes.

Under Rajesh, the Tamil Nadu Health System Reform Program was set up with the state government, Centre and World Bank signing a $287 million loan agreement in June 2019. The program aims to improve the quality of health care, reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and fill equity gaps in reproductive and child health services in Tamil Nadu.

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Doctors, IAS officers & a scientist the 5 women leading Indias fight against Covid-19 - ThePrint