In late 2019, the world encountered an unprecedented virus that upended nearly every aspect of life and health—with consequences that will likely reverberate for many years to come. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, UTHealth has been at the forefront of saving lives and advancing our understanding of the virus. To continue to lead the path forward in patient care and research, we have established the UTHealth COVID-19 Center of Excellence.

UTHealth has expertise across the spectrum of adult and pediatric specialty and sub-specialty care, public health, biomedical research, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence. This uniquely positions the COVID-19 Center of Excellence to provide patients with the highest quality care resulting in the best outcomes, to lead translational research and clinical research that will optimize treatments for COVID-19, and to develop preventative protocols that will help keep our communities safe long into the future.

Located in the heart of the Texas Medical Center, there is no better place to receive care than the COVID-19 Center of Excellence. In addition to giving our patients superior outcomes—even the severely ill—through UT Physicians, the clinical practice of UTHealth, we provide programs such as corporate testing to help bring employees back to work, pathology analysis for quick and accurate results, and telehealth appointments to safely care for vulnerable populations. Furthermore, patients can visit our UT Physicians drive-thru clinics for convenient testing if they suspect they may have the virus.

Since day one, our leaders at the School of Public Health and across the university have informed local and state officials how best to respond to the pandemic using data-driven research and modeling. With the only freestanding School of Biomedical Informatics in Texas, our experts in artificial intelligence and machine learning are helping to organize and capitalize on the vast amount of COVID-19 data being collected. The center also ensures effective coordination and collaboration for comprehensive COVID-19 research, including:

• Community and public health projects: Our longitudinal COVID-19+ Cohort study conducted with partners throughout Southeast Texas will assess the virus's long-term consequences, determine factors that contribute to severe outcomes, and allow UTHealth experts to develop and implement treatments more effectively. Furthermore, we are building a Community Information Exchange to link vulnerable populations with health care and social service providers to help meet needs associated with social determinants of health, such as housing and access to food.
• Clinical trials: Funded by an $8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, our physician-scientists are investigating whether convalescent plasma infusions can prevent the progression of COVID-19 in one of the first randomized clinical trials in the country. Another research team is evaluating if an oral HIF-inhibitor can protect the lungs of COVID-19 patients, providing an effective treatment for acute respiratory distress syndrome, one of the deadliest consequences of the virus. Other trials include vaccine development, immunomodulaters, monoclonal antibodies, and stem cells.
• Translational research: The COVID-19 Data Index, funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, contains over 6,000 datasets from large repositories, research papers, and individual sources to provide researchers around the world with COVID-19 datasets, enabling timely scientific discoveries across disciplines.

In addition, our researchers are determining how COVID-19 impacts behavioral health and uncovering molecular pathways to validate treatments for acute and chronic inflammation and tissue damage associated with the virus.

From research to public health measures to direct patient care, the UTHealth COVID-19 Center of Excellence is helping our communities persevere through the COVID-19 pandemic while developing tools and treatments that will better prepare us for health crises in the future. To learn more about how you can support this initiative, visit www.uth.edu/giving or make a donation to our Research Accelerator Fund.