MAINTAINING AN ACTIVE RESEARCH CAREER DURING COVID-19 LOCKDOWNS

ABSTRACT

Maintaining an active medical research career is a multifaceted undertaking, and many challenges arise, even under normal circumstances. Therefore, the Australian government mandated COVID19 lockdowns and worksite restrictions from 2020 2021 inflicted an additional layer of complexity to an already complicated career for most researchers. A critical issue I faced during these COVID19 lockdowns was to establish whether our research focus was considered an essential service during a period of time when the public health advice was to restrict the movement of research staff and students by enacting new laws to ensure they stay at home. My research team members were also rightfully worried about contracting COVID19 during a period when a viable vaccine was not available. In this presentation, I will be covering some of the adaptive changes I implemented during the COVID19 lockdowns to ensure the continuity of our research program, which includes 1) Proactive engagement with our medical institute and university COVID-19 taskforces to formulate a joint vision of which research areas should be prioritised during these lockdowns in pursuit of both treatments and vaccines;2) Continuous communication with my research team to encourage, motivate and energise staff and students to allow them to contribute to the research program meaningfully;3) Provide flexible working hours for research team members to work within the confinements of a reduced worksite footprint with an appreciation for social distancing;and 4) Contingency planning to ensure if one research team member contracts COVID-19, there are others with the cross-functional skillset to take over their responsibilities. Taking such steps ensured the rapid development of a new treatment regime that was showing impressive results in reversing multi-organ dysfunction in another clinically challenging area in intensive care units (sepsis). Following the preclinical assessment of safety and efficacy of this new treatment regime, we were able to compassionately treat a critically ill COVID19 patient receiving intensive care at Austin Health. In a short period of time, we saw improved regulation of blood pressure, arterial blood oxygen levels and kidney function. The patient was able to be taken off machine ventilation 12 days after starting sodium ascorbate treatment and discharged from hospital without any complications 22 days later. This research has now informed the design and commencement of multi-centre randomised controlled clinical trials at four hospital intensive care units in Australia.