Green Templeton Fellows addressing challenges of COVID-19

Colleagues from across the Green Templeton community have been directly involved in many and varied aspects of pandemic-related research, whether about caring for individuals, developing a vaccine, treatments, testing, thinking about and influencing government policies and long-term implications. The snapshots below provide a non-exhaustive sense of how more than twenty-five Green Templeton Fellows have been engaging in recent weeks.

• Common Room member Dr Catrin Moore, research group leader in the global burden of antimicrobial resistance at the Big Data Institute, has been working to diagnose COVID-19 in patients at the John Radcliffe Hospital NHS microbiology lab. Catrin is also in collaboration with other researchers in the University who, if funded, hope to understand the impact of COVID-19 on bacterial sepsis, antibiotic consumption and stewardship, and antimicrobial resistance in eleven countries.
• Emeritus Fellow Jeffrey Aronson has been researching and writing widely as part of the team at the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine to build the Oxford COVID-19 Evidence Service.
• Governing Body Fellow Shoumo Bhattacharya is working with biotechnology firm ILC Therapeutics to examine the use of evasins – molecules derived from ticks – as a potential COVID-19 treatment option for patients whose lungs are badly damaged by the virus and face a critical juncture in recovery.
• Governing Body Fellow Mary Daly is undertaking an analysis of ‘what went wrong with social care in the pandemic’. She is researching this specifically in the UK but is also involved with international colleagues comparing social care-related developments in the UK with those in Denmark, Italy, Spain and Sweden.
• Senior Research Fellow Timothy Denison has co-led OxVent, a multidisciplinary team of engineers and medics at the University of Oxford and King’s College London shortlisted by the UK government to go to the next stage of testing for safety and usability for their ventilator prototype.
• Governing Body Fellow Sue Dopson led a panel on Covid-19: Preparedness, resilience and the future of public health.
• Senior Research Fellow Bernhard Ebbinghaus has written on the multiple hidden risks for older people of the looming pension crisis following this pandemic.
• Doll Fellow and GP Alexander Finlayson has quickly scaled a two-sided healthcare communications platform through his company Nye Health, which enables any clinician to consult any citizen / patient, on any device from anywhere.
• Associate Fellow Charles Foster has written about the broader context in Coronavirus pandemic: dark clouds, but perhaps some silver linings?
• Research Fellow Ben Goldacre co-led research on factors associated with COVID-19 related hospital death in the UK and published a widely reported analysis of NHS patient data, the largest study of its kind.
• Senior Research Fellow Mark Graham has been studying policies that governments and companies are putting in place to protect workers in the gig economy. His goal with colleagues is to develop an understanding of what is possible in order to both highlight best practice and lay the foundations for effective policies for gig workers in the post-pandemic world.
• Emeritus Fellow Muir Gray has been thinking, writing and broadcasting on well-being, including on how to stay fit and well indoors… whatever your age.
• Senior Research Fellow Trish Greenhalgh has undertaken a range of research, published widely, and led in particular on making the case for wearing masks.
• Visiting Associate Fellow Timothy Hoff has argued that the pandemic may lead to big changes in the education and training of health care professionals.
• Governing Body Fellow Elisabeth Hsu has written on COVID-19: Recommendations for Traditional Chinese Medical (TCM) treatment.
• Common Room Member Georgina Humphreys, who works within the Open Research team at Wellcome, is involved in the data sharing working group of the Therapeutic Accelerator initiative to fund development of and access to Covid-19 therapies.
• Governing Body Fellow David Hunter has written on the need for a unified digital health data system for the NHS to help detect and control the next pandemic threat.
• Governing Body Fellow Stephen Kennedy is starting a large, international study to evaluate the effects of Covid-19 in pregnancy. The INTERCOVID study will provide women, families, health care providers and policy makers with high-quality evidence regarding the effects of Covid-19 in pregnancy on the health of the mother, fetus and newborn.
• Governing Body Fellow Paul Klenerman has commented that ‘all viruses accumulate mutations over time, some faster than others… for Covid-19, this has only just begun – but this emerging variation can be tracked in detail’.
• Senior Research Fellow Trudie Lang has been providing policy advice and was named in the Guardian as one of five main players who have helped to restore British faith in the value of experts guiding the British public through the Coronavirus outbreak.
• Senior Research Fellow Martin Landray is co-leading the Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy RECOVERY trial working to identify treatments that may be beneficial for adults hospitalised with confirmed COVID-19.
• Senior Research Fellow Christopher Lavy is chair of a group setting up a children’s orthopaedic hospital in Zimbabwe. It has not opened yet and so doesn’t have Covid cases itself, but the local government hospital has started taking them, and like in the UK there is little PPE. The hospital has therefore donated their surgical drapes and engaged local tailors to convert them to make gowns hats and masks for the government hospitals.
• Governing Body and Senior Doll Fellow Laurence Leaver has continued to lead medical teaching in college, including a powerful final session with 6th year medics as they graduated early to go and work in the NHS on the clinical front line. This is in addition to his work as a GP.
• Emeritus Fellow and Pastoral Adviser John Lennox has been reflecting on the situation including in an expansive interview with 1079 LIFE VIEWS, which tackles issues in Faith and Ministry.
• Doll Fellow Sheila Lumley contributes to the medical teaching in college, including a powerful final session with 6th year medics as they graduated early to go and work in the NHS on the clinical front line.
• Research Fellow Akshay Mangla has co-written, ‘Policing and Public Health: State Capacity on the Front Lines of the COVID-19 Pandemic‘, for the Centre for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), University of Pennsylvania.
• Governing Body Fellow Richard McManus has written on COVID-19 and hypertension: risks and management in addition to his work as a GP and as Welfare Dean in the college, a critical role at this time.
• Associate Fellow Karl Moore has been in discussion on a range of perspectives as part of his weekly CEO series.
• Governing Body Fellow Neil Mortensen spoke the BBC World at One on 30 April about risk assessing surgery in the absence of adequate PPE.
• Senior Research Fellow Rasmus Kleis Nielsen together with other colleagues at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has been researching and commenting widely, including through a new UK COVID-19 news and information project.
• Emeritus Fellow Richard Peto is leading work on the epidemiology of the virus and was featured on BBC Today.
• Governing Body Fellow Rafael Ramírez leads internationally on on scenario planning in the time of COVID-19 and how COVID-19 is changing the use of Scenarios in Finance.
• Research Fellow Sara Shaw has written on Evidence based guidance for video consultations – supporting the response to COVID-19
• Associate Fellow Chris Winchester has written on science communication in the COVID-19 era, ‘Open science turbocharges coronavirus response’
• Senior Research Fellow Sue Ziebland is a member of a DHSC/UKRI Covid-19 rapid response panel which meets weekly. It will be allocating research grant funding and is focused on projects that require rapid activation during the pandemic.