Lab in the Time of Coronavirus

Meet a protein aficionado working on a new way to treat COVID-19. As an expert on proteins, biochemist Barry Honig, PhD, has explored a huge variety of topics during his career: from color vision to cancer. He’s a theorist, a scientist interested in understanding general principles of how proteins interact and how those principles carry over from one problem to the next.

In this episode, explore how Dr. Honig is applying lessons...

Researchers recruit New Yorkers who have recovered from coronavirus to be scanned for long-term damage to the heart and other organs.

So you contracted COVID-19, and you got better. You took an antibody test: It was positive. But do you feel that you've truly recovered?

Reports of long-term health problems linked to the coronavirus, from brain fog to hypertension, have been making the news. To better understand the extent of...

What does it look like to start graduate school in the middle of a pandemic? In this episode, meet incoming students at Columbia’s Doctoral Program in Neurobiology and Behavior and at the Zuckerman Institute. These young minds are navigating safety concerns and immigration policies while preparing to begin their careers in science: from Francisco Sacudura, who studies how the brain controls the body, to Rachel Frazer, who hopes to...

You’re a graduate student. You’ve spent five to seven years in the lab, doing experiments and analyzing data. At last, the big day comes to present your PhD research, defend your written thesis and get your degree.

Then COVID breaks out.

Tune in to hear the stories of four women who gave one of the biggest presentations of their lives, their thesis defense, over Zoom. Follow them as they prepared their bedrooms and their basem...

Across the country and the world, people are getting into the habit of wearing face masks to protect themselves and others from COVID-19. But what’s the proper way to clean a mask when it may have become contaminated? What should someone do with their mask after visiting the grocery store or working a shift in a warehouse?

Meet a team of Columbia researchers testing out different procedures for sterilizing N95 face masks at home...

As the world waits for a COVID-19 vaccine, researchers in New York are developing a strategy for curbing the pandemic that might be available sooner: treating people who have the virus with antibodies collected from those who have recovered. 

Tune in to hear about their efforts: from using powerful microscopes to map the atomic structure of the virus to learning how it evades detection by the immune system. And imagine a future in...

As America loosens its COVID-19 restrictions, many worry that a second wave of the virus will emerge. To avoid this scenario, scientists around the country are developing new coronavirus tests. Being able to track who is infected, before symptoms emerge, could help to curb transmission of the virus and keep infection rates under control.

At Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute, a group led by scientist Andrés Bendesky is coming toget...

In the midst of the uncertainty caused by COVID-19, a new forum has emerged that brings together leading researchers, physicians and scholars from across the world. Every week, they’re sharing the latest research with a speed and openness unthinkable before the virus: at Columbia’s weekly Virtual COVID-19 Symposium.

What are U.S. physicians learning from doctors in Italy? How can scientists develop treatments that keep up with th...

How did a young Columbia researcher organize hundreds of young scientists to combat coronavirus in a matter of days? It all started with a call for help sterilizing hospital masks. The overwhelming response he received laid the foundations for a veritable army of volunteers, called Columbia Researchers Against COVID-19 (CRAC). 

This episode of Lab in the Time of Coronavirus follows the evolution of CRAC and introduces some of th...

Crisis is the mother of invention. In response to the COVID-19, smart minds across the world are creating new healthcare devices and innovations that may outlast the pandemic itself.

This episode of Lab in the Time of Coronavirus explores a new piece of equipment designed to protect doctors during procedures that help patients breathe: a COVID-proof box that shields against the virus, and filters infected air to trap virus particl...