The University of Alabama at Birmingham has awarded its second round of grants, totaling $402,000, for urgent COVID-19 research.

The 10 new pilot projects began Aug. 1 and will last six months. They were selected for their high probability of having an impact on the COVID-19 crisis within weeks or months.

These grants are in addition to the 14 projects that were funded beginning May 1, after the Birmingham and Montgomery business community raised $1.1 million in just 20 days in March and April. Part of that money is helping fund the second round of grants, along with other money raised since then from businesses and the community.

“These projects, together with the 14 projects funded in May by the UAB School of Medicine, show once again that UAB is at the forefront in fighting COVID-19,” said Kent Keyser, Ph.D., associate vice president in the Office of Research. “We are grateful for the philanthropic support that made the program possible.”

The titles of projects funded shows the diversity of research going on at UAB.

• Clonal diversity of human antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 S-protein.
• Glucocorticoid treatment of COVID-19 cytokine storm syndrome.
• Therapeutics targeting COVID-19 entry into pulmonary epithelial cells.
• Immunotyping COVID-related acute respiratory distress syndrome.
• Circulating microbiota and microbial endotoxin drive uncontrolled immune activation of blood monocytes in COVID-19.
• Development of a tri-specific neutralizing antibody for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
• Individual- and area-level risk factors for COVID-19 disparities in the Deep South.
• Exploratory study of the effect of tranexamic acid treatment on the progression of COVID-19 in outpatients.
• Molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of acute respiratory distress syndrome in critically ill SARS-CoV-2-infected patients.
• Neutrophils as a driving mechanism of acute respiratory distress syndrome and death in COVID-19 patients.