A team of talented IU researchers join forces in a nationwide study to tackle COVID 19's unsolved mysteries

by Andrea Zeek, IU Studios, and John Simmons, IUSON BL

Throughout the school year, Indiana University and IUSON BL have worked hard to help keep our students and our community safe from COVID-19. But, before things can completely return to normal, some important lessons still need to be learned. New COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to be extremely effective in keeping people from getting sick, but how effective are they in keeping vaccinated people from spreading the disease to others?

A nationwide study

Prevent COVID U’s researchers have set the ambitious goal of recruiting and tracking up to 12,000 college students, ages 18 to 26, at the 22 universities and then following them over a five-month period. Here in Bloomington, Prevent COVID U is led by Dr. Molly Rosenberg and Dr. Christina Ludema of the IU School of Public Health Bloomington and Aaron Ermel, MD, of the IU School of Medicine. Prevent COVID U’s findings will help scientists answer key questions about life-after-vaccination and the potential (if any) of transmitting the disease to others.

"I am excited about having IU contribute to a study that is of such critical importance," says Rosenberg, an assistant professor at the IU School of Public Health Bloomington. "We know we have an arsenal of vaccines that are extremely effective at preventing COVID-19 disease and death. But we don't know whether any of these vaccines prevent asymptomatic transmission. That’s a question that needs to be answered."

In addition to Rosenberg and Ludema, key members of the IU research team include Aaron Carroll, MD, Lana Dbeibo, MD, and Kathy Hiller, MD, Associate Dean of the IU School of Medicine Bloomington; Beth Rupp, MD, of the IU Student Health Center; and IUSON’s Dr. Mary Lynn Davis-Ajami. This dedicated team of researchers worked long hours in a highly collaborative manner to quickly ramp up testing and tracking protocols on the IU campus that met both the study’s national protocol and timelines.

The team also forged larger collaborations with other universities across the country to develop recruitment procedures that were both standardized across the 22 schools participating in the research, while accurately reflecting the diversity of the student populations being studied. Davis-Ajami says that this wider collaboration was “extraordinarily helpful” and could set the stage for IU to participate in other large-scale clinical trials.

The study's details

IU’s robust and highly organized systems for COVID-19 testing and vaccination (see The Fight Against COVID 19 in this edition of The Nursing News) helped make IU’s participation in this portion of Prevent COVID U possible. As with the COVID 19 on-arrival testing and vaccinations, our IUSON BL student nurses were on hand, volunteering to help with intake forms and recruiting the study’s participants. Dr. Mary Lynn Davis-Ajami continues as a co-Investigator with the IU team and serves as a licensed clinical supervisor for Prevent COVID U’s vaccinations and blood draws and the study’s post-vaccination observation phase.

“IUSON is very excited to be working with a renowned national study team, our IUB Health Science sister schools, and the broader subgroup of researchers and universities across the country who are taking part in this important study,” says Davis-Ajami. 

Of equal importance is the opportunity Prevent COVID U offers our students to join in the nationwide effort to stop COVID-19. "We have heard from IU students that the COVID-19 pandemic has often made them feel disempowered and helpless," says Ludema. "It is our hope that this study will provide at least some of our IU students the opportunity to be more active contributors in the fight."