Online Originals: Brody School of Medicine allocates funding toward developing improved COVID-19 treatments, advancing vaccine research

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) – The Brody School of Medicine has received $15 million in CARES Act funding from the North Carolina General Assembly to put toward COVID-19 initiatives.

It allocated the funding toward more than 20 different projects to help develop improved treatments, advance vaccine research, and minimize COVID-19’s impact in the region and state.

“We think about this as an emerging disease but in NC now there are about 180 thousand people who had it and in a typical year we get about 50 thousand people with diabetes, so this is going to approach 4 times the annual diabetes diagnosis.”  Dr. Peter Schmidt, Vice Dean Brody School of Medicine 

The funded projects fall into three categories related to COVID-19:

• Treatments to enhance innate immunity to the virus.

• Vaccine development and community testing initiatives.

• Other funded projects aim to support high-risk and rural populations in the region and advance efforts to slow transmission.

“Sometimes if somebody doesn’t speak English or doesn’t have the education level it can be harder to recruit them into trials. If they aren’t included in the trails its harder to get them the treatment when its proved.” Dr. Peter Schmidt, Vice Dean Brody School of Medicine 

Dr. Schmidt says making sure all trials are inclusive is essential in the studies conducted. He says the third category is where that would fall.

WATCH: Dr. Peter Schmidt explains what the school is studying for vaccine development.