Helping to Establish a Delivery Framework

Gene Morse, PharmD, SUNY Distinguished professor in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, has been at the forefront of finding answers to the crisis both nationally and internationally.  Morse has earned international recognition for his work in infectious disease pharmacology, pharmacotherapy and global health over more than 40 years. A prolific researcher who has secured millions in federal funding over several decades, Morse has been actively involved in drug development research since the introduction of antiretrovirals for HIV in 1986, with more recent emphasis on the hepatitis C virus, Zika virus and tuberculosis.

As director of UB’s Global Virus Network Center of Excellence, Morse has spent years building scientific collaborations with research institutions in Buffalo and around the globe that explore the interface of virus-cancer-immunology research initiatives.

As questions around COVID-19 surged and lockdown measures halted his ongoing HIV-related work, Morse applied decades of insight and institutional connections to combat this new pandemic. He now heads two groundbreaking efforts to gain greater insights into COVID-19. 

The first is a clinical trial partnership between UB and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center called the WNY COVID-19 Research Collaborative. The collaboration brought an international clinical trial to Western New York, allowing eligible patients diagnosed with COVID-19 at four local medical facilities to access an early investigational treatment option. The drug, an anti-inflammatory agent called sarilumab approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat rheumatoid arthritis, may help control the overactive inflammatory response in the lungs of critically ill COVID-19 patients. The drug, a monoclonal antibody, targets interleukin-6, an inflammatory marker for severe COVID-19. Tocilizumab, a similar agent, has shown promise in preliminary studies in China.  Working with colleagues from the Jacobs School, Morse will oversee protocol activities for the three additional study sites: Erie County Medical Center, Buffalo General Medical Center, and Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital.

The speed with which this clinical trial came together over a few days in late March is due in large part to the fact that Morse, his colleagues at Roswell, and their medical partners in the area were already working together to bring opportunities to Western New York long before the pandemic hit.

“The goal of the collaborative was to invite projects to the region and determine which projects would be good at which sites,” says Morse. “It allows us to facilitate faster access to drug treatments and vaccines."

Morse also plays a crucial role in the Western New York Immunogenomic COVID-19 Study, a new initiative that unites three leading regional health care organizations: UB through the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and Morse’s team at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center; and Catholic Health. The study is working to develop a blood test that could help doctors predict which patients diagnosed with COVID-19 are likely to become critically ill.

“Early on, we saw people going to the ICU and others getting better,” explains Morse. “We’re trying to figure out if there is a predictive test to determine which way someone would go. The study is based on genetic variation in immune responses; we’re testing individuals’ immune systems and whether they’re geared up or not to fight the virus.”

The research will focus on sequencing immune receptors from both T cells and B cells, the two major types of immune cells the human body recruits to fight off viruses, including HIV and the particular coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Morse will examine the blood samples of consenting COVID-19 patients for immune-pharmacodynamic markers to measure antiviral and immune-therapeutics activity, as the patient progresses through the stages of COVID-19 infection and develops antibodies following infection.

Not only will the study help clinicians better understand how the virus works, but the blood test, when available, would also help medical facilities be prepared to avoid the ICU onslaughts that defined the early days of the pandemic.   

“If we know, for instance, that if 100 people come into the ER and 20 will end up in the ICU, it helps hospitals plan for new ICU space, arrange for patient transfers or request more physicians,” says Morse.

Morse is confident that the protocols, plans and partnerships he and his colleagues have honed through these studies will make it easier to introduce new therapeutics to patients as soon as they’re ready.

“As we get ready for a possible vaccine and treatments, we’re establishing the framework to support plans to disseminate them,” says Morse. “These Western New York collaborations will be the multipronged efforts to help people get access to whatever treatments become available."