BMI Weekly News  

March 23, 2020 

Letter from Dr. Pellett to all BMI students, faculty, and staff   

The COVID-19 pandemic has unequivocally arrived in our area.  In the absence of a vaccine and antivirals, the only meaningful approach to slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 is social distancing.  Failure to do this will inevitably result in horrendous pressures on hospitals, health-care workers, first-responders, and ultimately everyone else. 

As one of our students communicated to me late last week: 

  “The best action we have at this time is social distancing and I really mean self-quarantine. Unless it isabsolutely necessary, we should all be staying in our homes. … We    must give our hospitals and clinicians a fighting chance to keep this pandemic under control. The risks are too great if we do not abide by their simple requests: proper    hygiene and quarantine. This is not about us as individuals, but our society as a whole.”  

Eloquent and correct. 

Our institutional response to the pandemic has changed rapidly over the past two weeks.  Today, faculty and administrators from every department are working on a plan for maintaining essential functions, such as freezer monitoring, mouse husbandry, and taking care of some critical experiments that are already underway. 

The semester has not been cancelled.  If you are taking courses this semester, you should have already heard from your course directors about how the course will be run for the remainder of the semester.  Information about our weekly journal club is included above.  Our faculty is not on vacation.  They will also be responsive to emails. 

Our departmental office is closed, but our administrative staff (April, Joe, Kayla, and Mary) are working from home.  You can communicate with them by email.  They will be responsive to your needs.   

It is likely that there will be ongoing emails from every level of the university about changes in how we deal with the situation.  Please read them carefully and do as asked. 

I hope to be able to shake your hand before July. 

Phil 

 

News  

• With the Governor’s 3 week closure mandate taking effect tonight at midnight, it has been decided by Vice Dean, Dr. Linda Hazlett and Associate Dean, Dr. Daniel Walz to cancel our SURE 2020 program this year.   

Departmental Event(s)  

• All BMI Seminars for the rest of the Winter 2020 term, March and April have been canceled. These seminars will be rescheduled at a later date.  

• BMB7890★IM7850: JC/RDP IN THE TIME OF COVID:  

Message from Dr. Brian Edwards and Dr. Jeff Withey - We are suspending the JC/RDP course until the current campus quarantine is lifted - hopefully by the middle of April. We will then resume the presentations as scheduled. The deferred presentations will be rescheduled into May - or later, if necessary.  In particular, the two presentations scheduled for March 27 (Antoine Khobeir / Kay Ekwuazi) are now tentatively scheduled for April 22. 

Please prepare your PowerPoint slide deck for your originally assigned date - understanding that you will very probably present it at a later date. The students who have not yet presented in the course will be given a deferred grade until they complete the requirement.  

Thank-you for your patience and understanding.