Biomedical Research COVID-19 Impact Assessment: Lessons Learned and Compelling Needs.

The COVID-19 pandemic, a public health emergency of unprecedented scale and consequences, has revealed vulnerabilities in our health care system and public health infrastructure, yet also serves as a remarkable learning opportunity for transformational changes. Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic touch every aspect of life in ways not previously imagined—the biomedical and health research enterprises are no exception. Preexisting stresses in the research sector’s workforce, processes, and organizations have been exacerbated in the sector’s quest to effectively generate meaningful information in response to the pandemic and deliver research in new and innovative ways. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the necessity to enhance the ability for researchers to share data through interoperable and customizable systems to enable rigor, reproducibility, and efficiency. This properly stewarded data essential for research is available and actionable, but trust remains a critical issue in establishing and maintaining data sharing entities [147]. Despite the rapid innovation occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic, longstanding problems remain. The disproportionate burden of COVID-19 cases and outcomes amongst lower-income populations and communities of color underscores the need to address the lack of diversity of clinical research participants as a top priority. The type of causal, clinical, and population-related intervention studies that may have a critical impact on outcomes in this pandemic necessitated the inclusion of a large, diverse pool of participants most adversely affected and traditionally underrepresented in research. Government funding focused on community engagement in research can certainly be a lever to promote diversity in study participation, as regulatory bodies seek to ensure the safety and efficacy of therapies across diverse populations [151]. This paper describes the current status of research and the challenges, lessons learned, and the potential, if the challenges are overcome, for a longer-term impact beyond the pandemic to enhance the resilience and diversity of the biomedical research workforce. These lessons learned can also be applied to help advance the rapid translation of research into practice (from basic science to clinical and population settings to applied public health), promote the sharing of data for delivering near real-time results in a clinical setting, and elevate community and participants as equal partners in research.