IDM Alumni Stories

Abigail Rubio (IDM '20) recently published In vitro Susceptibility of Multidrug-Resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa following Treatment-emergent Resistance to Ceftolozane-tazobactam, comparing the in vitro susceptibility of multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates 34 collected before and after treatment-emergent resistance to ceftolozane-tazobactam. Congratulations!  

THE CONVERSATION - Knowing the genome sequence helps researchers understand how the virus is mutating into variants and how it's traveling from person to person. Alexander Sundermann (IDM '14, EPI '22), EPI and IDM's Lee Harrison, and Pitt Medicine's Vaughn Cooper explain genomic surveillance - what it is and why we need more of it to track coronavirus variants and help end the COVID-19 pandemic.  

In collaboration with the Center for Global Health, Pitt held its first-ever Global Health Case Competition last fall. Pitt supported the winning team from that competition to enter Emory University's Morningside International Global Health Case Competition. Emily Crisan (BCHS '24) joined five undergraduate students and faculty mentor HPM's Elizabeth Van Nostrand and won third place out of 53 teams from across the U.S. for their plan and strateg... 

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Pitt Public Health and the Allegheny County Health Department had to think fast and act quickly to implement its long-standing public health internship safely. Robin Leaf, director of strategic academic initiatives and accreditation, Jamie Sokol (BCHS '07), and Leah Lamonte (IDM '06), both with the health department, recently presented their work at Teaching Prevention 2021.   

TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT - As we did in wearing masks and taking other precautions to slow the spread of COVID-19, we should focus together on getting inoculated to move toward what scientists and doctors call “herd immunity” – a collective level of protection that blocks the spread of the virus. Herd immunity requires 80% of the population to be protected by either vaccination or previous infection, according to alumna Jill D. Henning (IDM ’08). “As ... 

TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT - Pitt Public Health alumna Jill D. Henning (IDM ’08), associate professor of biology at Pitt Johnstown, and fellow experts answer the public's questions about COVID-19.  For starters: The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for COVID-19 contain mRNA and not any virus, which means that you are not contagious. It is safe to interact with members of your household without a mask after the vaccine.  

Colleen R. Zaccard, Lauren Shapiro, Maria D. Martin-de-Saavedra, Christopher Pratt, Kristoffer Myczek, Amy Song, Marc P. Forrest, Peter Penzes Dendritic spinules are thin protrusions, formed by neuronal spines, not adequately resolved by diffraction-limited light microscopy, which has limited our understanding of their behavior. Here we performed rapid structured illumination microscopy and enhanced resolution confocal microscopy to stud...