See how the College of Engineering rose to the challenges posed by COVID-19
March 16, 2020
Remote classes begin.
March 19, 2020
Begin working remotely.
The Board of Trustees votes to postpone or cancel in-person commencement. Graduates to join the fall 2020 commencement.
March 21, 2020
Departments of biomedical engineering, biological sciences & nursing gather lab supplies and personal protection equipment to give to UAMS.
March 25, 2020
Arkansas Researchers Developing Prediction Models for Coronavirus
Data science professor, Justin Zhan, is collaborating with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences professors David Ussery and Xuming Zhang to develop accurate predictions of genomic variation trends of coronavirus.
Their work will help public officials monitor the outbreak and adapt to changes. It could also provide valuable information for the design of vaccines.
April 2, 2020
U of A Donates Medical and Testing Supplies to UAMS to Help COVID Response.
April 3, 2020
University summer camps are canceled and all summer classes will continue to be taught remotely.
April 17, 2020
Researchers Customize Aerosol Boxes for Washington Regional
Aerosol boxes have emerged organically as an innovative solution to protect clinicians from exposure during the critical procedure of intubating patients with COVID-19. To address this problem locally, Morten Jensen, associate professor of biomedical engineering, has partnered with Washington Regional Medical Center, to produce transparent acrylic boxes that clinicians can place over a patient’s head and neck while intubating, which is the process of inserting a tube through a patient’s mouth and into the airway leading to the lungs. Intubation is done so a patient can be placed on a ventilator to assist with breathing.
April 24, 2020
Team Develops Easy-to-Produce Ventilators for COVID-19 Patients Faculty from the College of Engineering, Eleanor Mann School of Nursing and Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design have been working to develop a high-quality ventilator that can be manufactured quickly and cheaply for clinicians at Washington Regional Medical Center. The device developed at the U of A is known as the AR-Vent. AR-Vent automatically pumps existing Artificial Manual Breathing Unit bags, and puts air into a patient’s lungs. The design focuses on a mechanical apparatus that can compress the bag to ventilate the patient.
May 4, 2020
The Board of Trustees approves a plan to process and distribute $7.7 million in student aid to University of Arkansas students. The board also approves a resolution of intent to have on-campus classes in the fall.
May 14, 2020
Engineers Use 3D Printer to Produce Protective Masks for Rehab Clinic
A design team led by engineering professors Raj Rao, Wenchao Zhou and Zhenghui Sha have used a 3D printer to produce and deliver 50 protective masks to be used by a Northwest Arkansas rehabilitation clinic. As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Dr. Joel Sebag, director of Spine and Sports Rehabilitation, realized his clinic did not have enough equipment to protect therapists and patients. He discussed the problem with Rao, who has spearheaded or contributed to several university projects aimed at providing protective equipment to hospitals and clinics in Arkansas. Sebag said the masks will be used by Spine and Sports Rehabilitation therapists serving Edgewood Health and Rehabilitation Center in Springdale, Rogers Health and Rehabilitation Center and the Springdale Senior Center, in addition to Washington Regional and Northwest Medical Center.
June 3, 2020
U of A Researchers Explore Ways to Clean
Single-Use PPE for Reuse An interdisciplinary team of University of Arkansas researchers is fighting COVID-19 using microwaves and plasma to disinfect personal protective equipment for medical professionals. Researchers hope it will enable single-use equipment to be safely reused. Samir El-Ghazaly, distinguished professor of electrical engineering, and Yuchun Du, associate professor of biological sciences, received a $299,963 grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate how microwave and plasma doses can kill the coronavirus within five minutes while preserving the integrity of equipment.Researchers are working to understand how the effective combination of microwave and plasma doses, exposure time, humidity and temperature can destroy the virus. “We wanted to focus on this research to improve the personal protective equipment shortage and develop a versatile and environmentally friendly decontamination approach,” El-Ghazaly said. With virus cases on the rise and medical teams facing equipment shortages, El-Ghazaly and his team want to develop a safe and effective method for disinfection. “The proposed disinfection process does not use chemicals or emit toxic gases,” El-Ghazaly said. “Thus, it presents an environmentally friendly approach to the decontamination process.” The team has begun testing at the University of Arkansas Engineering Research Center in south Fayetteville. “We will build a test system that combines microwave energy and plasma,” El-Ghazaly said. “The test system will precisely control the intensity of the microwave and also the plasma density.” The device chamber will help the team monitor the temperature and humidity. Researchers will use influenza A viruses, which are enveloped viruses similar to COVID-19. “Like coronaviruses, influenza A viruses are RNA viruses and are surrounded by a host-derived lipid bilayer,” El-Ghazaly said. “It has been widely used in vaccine studies and vaccine productions and has a very low risk. The effective destruction of influenza A virus would guarantee the system’s capability to destroy COVID-19.”
July 16, 2020
Researcher to Study Whether Sewage Can Help Track COVID-19
Wen Zhang, associate professor of civil engineering, was awarded $40,000 through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, to study wastewater to help community leaders better understand the prevalence of the disease in their area. Coronavirus has been detected in patients’ feces throughout the illness and after recovery, so Zhang’s study focuses on collecting wastewater samples to test for evidence of the virus. The study also seeks to develop a method of estimating spread of COVID-19 in communities based on the concentration of the virus found in wastewater. “Given the shortage of Covid-19 test kits, this can be particularly helpful to estimate the spread of the disease in a community, because asymptomatic individuals who are not tested could also excrete the virus and release them into wastewater,” she said. Zhang said the research explores virus spread in a non-invasive way, using tools that are relatively inexpensive. “By detecting the virus in wastewater, we hope to utilize this information to estimate the most affected communities,” she said. “It will provide information about the virus spread without testing every individual person in the community. And hopefully this information can assist the state and public to make future decisions combating the pandemic. ”And, Zhang said, the presence of coronavirus in wastewater could pose its own public health risk.“Even though the risk of contracting the disease through feces of an infected person is believed to be low, the release of SARS-CoV-2 into wastewater could still pose a risk to the public health, especially if the virus is only partially removed in wastewater treatment plants,” she said. Zhang said she’s pleased to be able to leverage her experience as an engineer to fight the spread of coronavirus. “We have the right equipment and expertise for this project,” she said. “I love that I
have the opportunity to play a part in ending this pandemic. It’s really a team effort, and I have already received support from multiple wastewater facilities, the state of Arkansas and the Arkansas Department of Health.” Zhang said the project scope is one year, and she hopes to have results in the fall of 2020.
August 24, 2020
Fall semester begins with safety measures in place.