UC Davis this week launched a new video podcast, Deans Discuss: COVID-19, addressing the university’s research into the pandemic. In weekly episodes, Allison Brashear, dean of the School of Medicine, and Michael D. Lairmore, dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine, will discuss the collaboration taking place across UC Davis and the pathways to progress.

The Office of Strategic Communications posted Episode 1, “Testing 1-2-3” (above) on Monday (June 8). Future episodes will be released by 3 p.m. Mondays and will be posted here.

The podcast led off a week during which other UC Davis researchers will participate in two livestreamed programs on social media:

• Today (June 9) — A UC Davis Health Facebook Live program at 3 p.m. will address the health system’s response to COVID-19, the current state of the pandemic and how the health system is preparing for the future.

The program will feature David Lubarsky, vice chancellor of Human Health Sciences and CEO of UC Davis Health, and Stuart Cohen, professor of internal medicine, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and director of Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Control.

• Thursday (June 11) — UC Davis LIVE: COVID-19, the third in a series of programs featuring researchers from both sides of the causeway, 11:30 a.m. This program, on the topic of testing, had been originally scheduled for June 4, but was postponed so as not to conflict with a memorial service for George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Appearing on this edition of UC Davis LIVE: COVID-19 will be UC Davis Health clinicians Nam Tran, associate clinical professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; and Larissa May, a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine. They will answer questions on the different types of tests, their accuracy and how they are being used as health officials take steps to reopen the state and the country.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in California, Tran worked with colleagues to develop UC Davis’ own in-house test for SARS-CoV-2 based on samples from the first patient treated at UC Davis. In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed him to the state’s COVID-19 Testing Task Force, a public-private collaboration to more quickly increase coronavirus testing capacity.

May is the principal investigator for a study of a test developed at UC Davis to detect antibodies to the new coronavirus. She is the director of the Emergency Department’s Antibiotic Stewardship Program and has been involved in emergency preparedness around infectious disease outbreaks.

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