Custom Content by the Los Angeles Business Journal Thursday, July 2, 2020
A survey of American Cancer Society
grantees has found more than half report their cancer research has been
halted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The American Cancer Society reached out to all
of its funded researchers to assess the state of their projects and collect
information to guide its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In early April
2020, the ACS sent a survey out to 744 current grantees via e-mail; 488
grantees responded, yielding a 66% response rate.
Among the survey’s findings:
In response to: Are you currently working
primarily from home or teleworking due to the COVID-19 pandemic?, the
survey found a high proportion of grantees are working remotely all or most of
the time.
•
54% were working
entirely remotely
•
32% were working mostly
remotely with occasional in-person visits to office/campus/lab
•
8% were working mostly
or entirely in their normal work setting (6% in a clinical setting; 2% in
a research setting)
In response to: How has your institution
responded to the pandemic?
•
91% reported only
essential personnel were allowed
•
59% reported their
institution had closed laboratories
•
57% reported their
institution had temporarily halted research
•
4% reported their
institution remained entirely open
In response to: What has been the impact on
your research or training?
•
51% indicate a high
impact; all research or training activities are paused until further notice
•
43% report a modest
impact; some aspects are paused
•
7% report a low impact;
research or training continues as planned
“It is abundantly clear that the COVID-19
pandemic is having a major impact on cancer research,” said William C. Phelps,
Ph.D., American Cancer Society senior vice president of Extramural Research.
“In some labs queried for our survey, all non-essential research had been
halted, with research on COVID-19 being the only type of research being
encouraged. In addition to the deceleration in progress against cancer, these
laboratories and institutions will face significant additional costs associated
with restarting the cancer research enterprise in the coming months.”
Despite the significant impact of closed
laboratories, many researchers have found it a unique opportunity. Susanne
Warner, M.D., is an ACS grantee investigating the use of viruses to infect and
destroy colorectal cancer cells at City of Hope in Duarte, California. “Despite
being at home a lot more than usual, we’ve been able to be really productive in
the lab,” said Dr. Warner. “We’re taking this opportunity to review a lot of
our old data to see if there were messages that the science was trying to send
us that we didn’t have time to stop and listen to before. We’re also using the
time to plan new experiments so that when all this is over, we can hit the
ground running.”
To accommodate the temporary closing of many
research labs, the American Cancer Society will delay the start date of its
next round of grants from July 1, 2020 to September 1, 2020.
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