This section contains regularly updated highlights of the news from around The Johns Hopkins University. Links to the complete news reports from the nine schools, the Applied Physics Laboratory and other centers and institutes are to the left, as are links to help news media contact the Johns Hopkins communications offices.
A Johns Hopkins University team of 24 undergraduate students that’s come up with a clear, adaptable face mask has won the Future Forward Award in a global challenge to design a better mask.
More than 2,000 people from 34 countries will compete in a five-day virtual design challenge to find innovative solutions to challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Teams will try to engineer solutions for problems ranging from how to protect front-line healthcare workers and their families to minimizing transmission of the virus to addressing shortages of critical healthcare and medical equipment to ensuring that people have accurate information to help them make informed decisions.
In a new Science Robotics editorial published today, experts discuss the potential use of robots to combat COVID-19 by decreasing risks posed to humans, safely resuming halted manufacturing and making teleoperations more efficient. Much of the work required in combatting COVID-19 requires “dull, dirty, and extremely dangerous tasks for human workers but suitable to robots,” the editorial authors say, and they point to potential uses such as disinfecting operating rooms, taking temperatures at ports of entry, delivering medications and more.
Russell (Russ) Taylor, Director of the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics at The Johns Hopkins University, and an author on the editorial, is available to talk about the future of robotics and COVID-19.
Scientists developing a rapid system for tackling outbreaks of avian influenza at their origins in Thailand are available to discuss their project and how it could potentially help improve responses to other pandemic threats such as coronavirus.