Dear Friends of UCI,
Welcome to the Weekly Anteater report for what’s new and trending at UCI!
We’ve curated a collection of top news items and trending social topics. If you’re active on social media, please share this news with your friends and colleagues. We’ve attached social links and summaries for easy sharing!
On to this week’s highlights…
A Pandemic Year
How UCI survived and thrived during COVID-19
“The resilience of our health team, researchers, faculty, students and staff is nothing short of extraordinary…As an academic health system, we were made for these moments and our expertise and response shined bright in the darkness.”
— UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman
Student spotlight: Jordyn Weaver
UCI business student Jordyn Weaver, founder of online marketplace Forefront, plans to bring Black-owned businesses to global forefronts by connecting them to consumers worldwide.
Three Questions with Dr. Donald Forthal
Chief of the UCI School of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases Discusses COVID-19 Vaccines
“There is no danger of incorporation of the vaccines’ mRNA into the genes of a vaccinated individual, primarily because the mRNA is degraded and is not converted into DNA. In other words, it does not change an individual’s DNA.”
Who’s talking about UCI on social media?
UCI in the News
The pandemic is still too young to have yielded rigorous, peer-reviewed studies about its effects on cognitive function. But the brain scientists I spoke with told me they can extrapolate based on earlier work about trauma, boredom, stress, and inactivity, all of which do a host of very bad things to a mammal’s brain. “We’re all walking around with some mild cognitive impairment,” said Mike Yassa, a neuroscientist at UC Irvine. “Based on everything we know about the brain, two of the things that are really good for it are physical activity and novelty. A thing that’s very bad for it is chronic and perpetual stress.”
For Dr. Nadia Zuabi, [resident physician, UCI School of Medicine], the loss is so new that she still refers to her father, a fellow emergency department physician, in the present tense. Her father, Dr. Shawki Zuabi, spent his last days in her hospital, UCI Health in Orange County, Calif., before dying of Covid on Jan. 8. The younger Dr. Zuabi almost immediately returned to work, hoping to keep going through purpose and her colleagues’ camaraderie. … “I lost my best friend, my coach and the person I look up to,” she said.
Many people who experience long-term symptoms from the coronavirus did not feel sick at all when they were initially infected, according to a new study that adds compelling information to the increasingly important issue of the lasting health impact of Covid-19. … “Of the 34 children in the study, 11 were long-haulers,” said one of the authors, Melissa Pinto, an associate professor of nursing at the University of California Irvine.
