Category: ASciNA Virtual Talk

Should we let individuals decide how much social distancing to engage in, or are there good reasons why governments should infringe upon civil liberties and order citizens to stay at home? In our latest paper, we show that infectious diseases such as COVID-19 lead to significant externalities, i.e. adverse effects that individuals do not internalize when they engage in their personal cost-benefit analysis. Moreover, if society internalizes these effects by imposing appropriate public health measures, it becomes optimal to pursue a policy of containment rather than letting the disease spread until herd immunity is acquired.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted how we live, work, play, and move around our cities and communities. Additionally, it has changed how planners think about and prepare for the future, while navigating uncertainty. Over the last months, APA has developed a foresight approach that emphasizes the idea of “learning with the future” to help planners navigate change and prepare for future uncertainties. In this presentation, Petra will explain APA’s foresight approach and how it has been applied in times of COVID-19, she will present examples of how cities might change due to COVID-19, and how this accelerating pace of change may impact the planning profession.

Moxie is a novel companion for children designed to help promote social, emotional and cognitive development through play-based learning. With Moxie, children can engage in meaningful play, every day, with content informed by the best practices in child development and early childhood education.

Dr. Duerrschmid will speak about his academic work in cardiovascular immunology and his current role at Akoya Biosciences. Akoya Biosciences offers multiplex immunofluorescence solutions to detect up to 40 biomarkers on intact tissue sections. This approach allows researchers to interrogate cells within their spatial context, in turn enabling improved patient stratification in preclinical trials, in immuno-oncology, neuroscience, transplant biology, infectious diseases, and beyond.

Dr. Stadlbauer will describe his role in developing a serological enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the screening and identification of human SARS-CoV-2 seroconverters. This assay does not require the handling of infectious virus, can be adjusted to detect different antibody types in serum and plasma and is amenable to scaling. Serological assays are of critical importance to help define previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in populations, identify highly reactive human donors for convalescent plasma therapy and investigate correlates of protection.

When people are forced to be isolated from one another, do they crave social interactions in the same way a hungry person craves food? Positive social interactions in and of themselves may be basic human needs, analogous to other basic needs like food consumption or sleep. If so, the absence of positive social interaction may create a want, or “craving”, that motivates behavior to repair what is lacking.