University of Pittsburgh

ASM's COVID-19 Curated Research Registry

The mission of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) to promote and advance the microbial sciences has perhaps never been more clearly in focus than during the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. 

Accelerating basic research is key to ASM’s mission– it is where cure and prevention begin. It is impressive how rapidly research on SARS-CoV-2 /COVID-19 has advanced in just a few weeks, but easily accessing new and relevant research has been a challenge for basic researchers. When ASM’s Council on Microbial Sciences held a COVID-19 summit to identify the most significant scientific work on the virus, the coronavirus researchers and clinical microbiologists raised the need for the scientific community to curate important COVID-19 research. 

ASM is excited to announce the launch of the COVID-19 Research Registry, a platform curated and vetted by experts in the field of virology and related disciplines to provide immediate access to top COVID-19 research.

I am proud that Lynn Enquist, Ph.D., Henry L. Hillman Professor in Molecular Biology, Princeton University and former ASM President, will serve as Chief Curator for this Registry. Dr. Harold Varmus, Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine has agreed to join us as Chief Consultant on the project.
 
We are honored to have the following as Assistant Curators-in-Chief:
·       Rozanne M. Sandri-Goldin, Ph.D., Chancellor's Professor, Microbiology & Molecular Genetics, University of California, Irvine and Editor-in-Chief of ASM’s Journal of Virology 

·       Vaughn Cooper, Ph.D., Professor, Microbiology & Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh, and current ASM Board member

The entire curatorial board is listed on the Registry site. A particular thank you to ASM’s Academy of Microbiology for providing top expertise.
 

ASM is proud to add this initiative to our ongoing efforts. Through its capillary network of clinical microbiologists around the country and the world, ASM has accelerated communication and cleared roadblocks to ramp up SARS-CoV-2 testing. We continue to work closely with our dedicated colleagues, the indefatigable clinical microbiologists manning the front lines in hospitals and testing labs during this unprecedented global emergency. We send our thanks—and admiration--to these ASM members who are contributing directly to saving lives in this perilous time.

Our COVID-19 resource page provides important ASM updates and current information on the coronavirus.  We are also working with the news media to provide authoritative ASM experts and reliable material on the microbiology of viral epidemics. ASM journals is also providing free access to more than 50 research articles published over the last year in our 16 scholarly journals and expediting review for submitted papers related to coronavirus, ensuring that new research is quickly made available to the scientific community.
 
We are hoping that researchers will find the COVID-19 Research Registry a useful resource. We look forward to your comments, questions or suggestions, since your input will be critical for improving this platform and making it useful for the scientific community. All feedback can be sent to covid19registry@asmusa.org. We are all in this together.