DR. ANGELA M. CALIENDO
Go-to source on antibody testing
Angela M. Caliendo, MD, PhD, FIDSA is an infectious disease specialist at Rhode Island Hospital, the Warren Alpert Foundation Professor of Medicine, and Executive Vice Chair of Medicine at Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She’s also a “go-to” source on antibody testing for state health and government entities, as well many prominent news outlets, including The New York Times.
In addition to authoring antibody testing guidelines for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Dr. Caliendo is championing major initiatives in Rhode Island to validate the efficacy of tests and expand and speed-up their delivery. Antibody or serological tests are used to detect the presence of virus-fighting proteins called “antibodies” in the blood of a person who has been exposed to, or infected by, the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. Antibody testing is important because the results can show how widespread the virus may be, and also help verify the human body’s response to any potential vaccine.
“The test has to meet the highest standards possible... and we’re committed to meeting those standards...”
—Dr. Angela M. Caliendo
Of course, tests are only as good as they are accurate— and that’s where Dr. Caliendo comes in. She has dedicated more than 20 years to the development and validation of tests used to help detect and quantify infectious diseases and assess their clinical utility.
“With antibody testing,” Dr. Caliendo warns, “if you don’t know the performance characteristics well, you run the risk of getting inflated numbers of false-positive results—and we don’t want misleading or inaccurate data informing our decisions.” Dr. Caliendo adds that sensitivity and specificity validation numbers in the high 90 percent range are the gold standard. “ This will ensure the test is accurate and that it will flag almost everyone who actually has antibodies with a ‘positive’ result and, conversely, generate a ‘negative’ result for those who do not,” she says. But achieving that level of accuracy is a test in itself, coming only after collecting, analyzing and building a vast sample bank, and evaluating different test types on multiple platforms. “It’s a lot of work,” Dr. Caliendo concedes, “but the test has to meet the highest standards possible in order to be clinical useful and safe—and we’re committed to meeting those standards because the health of our patients depends on it.”
DR. LEONARD MERMEL
Trusted global expert in the top one percent of researchers worldwide
Leonard Mermel, DO, ScM, AM (Hon), FACP, FIDSA is Medical Director for the Department of Epidemiology and Infectious Disease Control at Rhode Island Hospital and a Professor of Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. He’s also a trusted advisor to state health and government entities and a consultant for ministries of health across the globe.
A prolific author, Dr. Mermel has written United States guidelines on the prevention and management of infectious diseases as well as more than 300 articles, textbook chapters, and abstracts. For perspective on his level of expertise, consider this: PubMed is a resource/database for biomedical and life sciences literature. From their millions of titles, they identify the top one percent of researchers worldwide—i.e. those whose publications are cited and referenced the most by others—and Dr. Mermel is on that list. He’s also lectured on infectious diseases and pandemic planning at the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine, NASA, and internationally.
“My interest and passion is trying to prevent the spread of infections in health care settings,” he says. “I always feel it’s my responsibility to find ways of mitigating risk to patients, staff, and visitors, and that feeling has only intensified since the pandemic hit.”
Dr. Mermel says that Lifespan was, in many cases, the “tip of the spear” in the fight against COVID-19 in the United States, because a number of early best practices were introduced here. Mandating masks for all hospital staff and patients, stopping visitations, and reprocessing health care workers’ N-95 respirators through an innovative vaporized hydrogen peroxide procedure, just to name a few.
“My interest and passion is trying to prevent the spread of infections in health care setting...”
—Dr. Leonard Mermel
“I was constantly talking with our counterparts in Europe and elsewhere—some of whom had Lifespan connections—about what worked and what didn’t,” he explains, “because they were a few months ahead of us in terms of dealing with COVID-19.” One example, he notes, was having Zoom meetings about school openings with a former Lifespan trainee, who is involved with the COVID-19 effort in South Korea.
While Dr. Mermel has been through high-profile public health crises before— such as Ebola, MERS, SARS, and H1N1—he says COVID-19 is different.
“It’s been profoundly taxing,” he admits, “with very long hours for all of us. But the thing that’s really kept me going is the camaraderie and teamwork here. From Dr. Murphy leading our Incident Command Taskforce to the folks handling disruptions in our supply chain and our facilities teams, environmental services, and support staff…I don’t recall anyone saying ‘no’ to anything. It’s been amazing.”
DR. MEGAN RANNEY
Champion for PPE for health care workers
Megan Ranney, MD, MPH is an emergency physician and researcher at Rhode Island Hospital. She is also director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health and an associate professor of health services, policy and practice, and emergency medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Prior to COVID-19, her work focused on digital health innovations, injury prevention, and public health and safety issues associated with gun violence. But the pandemic added another job to Dr. Ranney’s resume: Co-founder of GetUsPPE, a grassroots organization dedicated to addressing the critical shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline health care workers.
PPE includes things like surgical masks, gloves, gowns, and booties. These basic items, which help protect health care workers from exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19, were in scarce supply once the pandemic took hold.
“What we could not have prepared for was the degree to which the entire supply chain fell apart and the speed at which this virus filled our hospitals with really sick patients,” Dr. Ranney recounts. “With SARS and Ebola, we prepared for the really sick patients. But they never really came. With COVID-19, they came. But the PPE didn’t.” Dr. Ranney lent her voice and advocacy to the cause by going on national TV programs “more than 100 times” to talk about it. “Here I am with little media experience appearing on CNN, Good Morning America, the BBC . . . It was crazy!” she says.
She even got a surprise shout-out from pop icon Katy Perry, who told Dr. Ranney she was the real rock star. As of September, the organization she helped start has delivered more than 2.3 million units of PPE to health care workers in need—so, maybe Katy was right.
COVID-19 will likely be a significant part of caregiver’s daily work for a long time to come. Fortunately, Rhode Island Hospital is well-positioned to meet the challenge. “There are innovative, international voices within Lifespan who are determined to provide the best possible care to our patients,” Dr. Ranney states. “And that’s great news, because our hospital is very closely tied to our community. So much so, that when we thrive, so does Rhode Island.”
“There are innovative, international voices within Lifespan who are determined to provide the best possible care to our patients...”
—Dr. Megan Ranney
COVID-19 will likely be a significant part of caregiver’s daily work for a long time to come. Fortunately, Rhode Island Hospital is well-positioned to meet the challenge. “There are innovative, international voices within Lifespan who are determined to provide the best possible care to our patients,” Dr. Ranney states. “And that’s great news, because our hospital is very closely tied to our community. So much so, that when we thrive, so does Rhode Island.”