Vol. 1, No. 25

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Action Items: Register for the Oct. 21 RADx-UP Scientific Meeting.

Dear RADx-UP Partners, Writing to the NIH program officers who oversee the RADx-UP program, Patricia Brennan, RN, PhD, director of the National Library of Medicine, expressed her gratitude for “the amazing effort that your team has led to advance the NIH’s use of [common data elements] more in one year than has happened in a decade.”  That speaks to the critical participation and collaboration of all RADx-UP projects – as of today, 41 of you are submitting NIH RADx-UP CDEs data to the CDCC. Thank you!

We will hear from 10 RADx-UP projects when they present their work and data insights at the inaugural RADx-UP Scientific Meeting on Thurs., Oct. 21 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET.  We know everyone is busy and a four-hour webinar is a big commitment, but we urge you to join us for as much of the Scientific Meeting as you can – as Dr. Brennan noted, your projects are already making a difference, and this meeting is an opportunity to learn together. If you’re not already registered, please complete this simple online registration form today.

Last week, Francis Collins, MD, PhD, announced his retirement as director of the National Institutes of Health at the end of the year. Read about his 12-year tenure. For many years his blog has featured weekly posts about interesting stories from across the NIH. Recently, he highlighted the Say Yes! COVID Test initiatives: Learning to Protect Communities with COVID-19 Home Testing Programs

Share this RADx-UP funding opportunity Tell your colleagues about the RADx-UP Rapid Research Pilot Program grant opportunity. That and the Community Collaboration grants program are now accepting applications. The next deadline for a full application is Dec. 10. Find materials here to help spread the word.

The second RADx-UP COVID-19 Equity Evidence Academy Looking Forward: Bridging Infrastructures for Equitable COVID-19 Testing and Vaccinations will take place Nov. 17-18. Learn more. Each project should use this form to nominate three individuals to attend; registration information will be sent to those individuals beginning Oct. 18.

COV-IDD: Testing for COVID-19 in High Risk Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

“A year of lost instruction to a child who is developmentally behind is a disaster,” says John Foxe, PhD, chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Rochester and PI of the RADx-UP project COV-IDD: Testing for COVID-19 in High Risk Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. “I've been in this business for 30 years and have learned more in the past year in science than I have in the previous 29. As a neurobiologist I never thought I'd be talking about vaccination campaigns and testing campaigns for a virus and a pandemic, but here I am, taking my skillset as a scientist and bringing those skills to bear on this really important problem.”

Learn more about the project in this new video profile.

How Universal Masking Limits School Transmission of COVID-19 Despite Delta A masking mandate in North Carolina schools during the early weeks of the Delta variant surge resulted in a lower rate of infection among school children and staff members than what was reported in the broader community, according to a new report from the ABC Science Collaborative, which includes some RADx-UP Safe Return to School projects. Publishing in the journal Pediatrics, the analysis includes data from 20 school districts in North Carolina that held summer school or year-round school between June 14, 2021, and Aug. 13, 2021. The Delta variant became the dominant strain of SARS-CoV-2 circulating in the United States in early July 2021.

Educational Materials for COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination The Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center at Arizona State University, a RADx-UP partner, has developed growing collections of educational materials covering COVID-19 Testing Basics and COVID-19 Vaccination Materials. These are kept up to date with the latest public health guidelines, and they include social media-friendly graphics, factsheets, flyers, and more for public use. All materials feature language that is easy to understand in Spanish and English. Find links to these collections on the COVID-19 Resources for the Public page of the RADx-UP website. ASU also provides the COVID-19 Testing Commons sortable database.

RADx-UP Consortial Scholarly Products The RADx-UP Publications and Dissemination Committee oversees the development and review of scholarly products derived from information and data collected and aggregated by the RADx-UP CDCC (consortial publications). Learn more about the Committee.

CDCC Job Posting The Community Engagement Core of the RADx-UP CDCC is accepting applications for the position of Operations Director. This position is based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has an important role for leading our efforts to support projects and your community engagement activities. Please direct potential candidates to this posting; deadline to apply is Oct. 20.

Please contact us at RADx-UP-CDCC@duke.edu or through your assigned CDCC EIT (see current list under Engagement Impact Teams). Use this form to alert the CDCC to resources like the item above or other information coming out of your project or community.