Since social distancing policies were issued on March 17 in Hoboken due to COVID-19, research on campus has had a lot of difficulty continuing in a productive manner. According to an email to the Stevens community sent by Provost Christophe Pierre the following day, student and faculty researchers were only permitted to come to campus for “critical research needs.” Pierre provided guidelines under which research could be carried out, including discouraging more than three people in a lab at a time and encouraging those conducting research in labs to stay six feet apart from one another. In addition, access to all academic buildings was restricted to faculty, staff, and students with card access or keys.
While these social distancing measures are meant to slow the spread of COVID-19, it has limited what research can be conducted on campus and has set back both student and faculty projects. Undergraduate researcher and CHI Scholar Jeel Shah has been impacted by these policies. Shah’s year-long research project in the CHI program involves studying mitochondrial metabolism in cancer cells by growing 3D cell cultures and tagging functional proteins to observe and quantify their behavior. Since the social distancing measures were enacted, she has not been able to conduct her research at all and has not been able to access her laboratory notebook as well. Additionally, her work is also time-sensitive. According to Shah, “My samples can live by themselves max 2 days without changing the media. Since my samples all died, I have to start all over again, which is making sure we have the mouse with the right genotype (which could take 1-2 months), the mice have to be at least 2 months old before we harvest it for the experiment, and once we finally have the mouse we have to induce the cancer which takes a little over a week and a half.” She also emphasized the importance of making sure the laboratory mice are well taken care of while social distancing is in effect.
The social distancing measures are also impacting research at a faculty research level as well. Dr. Iwanicki is a professor at Stevens studying ovarian cancer detection and treatment. The research conducted by Dr. Iwanicki is time-sensitive as well, due to the fact that the tissue samples needed for research must be fed every two days and cannot be frozen. His tissue samples are also derived from human cancer patients instead of mice, so it would be difficult to replace the samples if they were to die. According to Dr. Iwanicki, his research team of six people has been reduced to one graduate student, who is responsible for going into the laboratory in McLean to take care of the tissue samples. While his team is still able to write about their research remotely, no laboratory research can be done beyond maintaining the tissue samples. However, Dr. Iwanicki emphasized the importance of data from research as it is required to continue to pursue funding for further research. Since the social distancing policies have been enacted, Dr. Iwanicki’s research goals have now been delayed 6 to 8 months. The delay of research results has set off what Dr. Iwanicki described as a “chain reaction” of missing deadlines for agencies, not being able to get funding due to missed deadlines and lack of results, and ultimately setting back the tenure schedule for professors and graduation for graduate students. According to Dr. Iwanicki, Stevens has not yet reached out to professors addressing these issues caused by the social distancing measures. Dr. Iwanicki stressed the importance of maintaining a routine and adhering to it while at home in quarantine. Within his research team, he has opted to hold weekly Zoom meetings with his team to discuss progress and spread encouragement during this stressful time.
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