Costas Lyssiotis, a molecular 

and 
integrative 
physiology 

professor and Ph.D. adviser, 

runs a lab that studies cancer 

cells in order to form targeted 

therapies 
to 
improve 
the 

immune system. Many of these 

experiments 
take 
multiple 

months 
and 
involve 
mice 

that need to be periodically 

monitored. Some of his lab 

members have set up a Google 

Calendar and take turns going 

into the lab in order to keep 

collecting data from the mice.

“In addition to the time 

and financial burden, we’re 

cognizant that these animals 

give their life for research 

and you want to treat them as 

fairly as possible, and so to just 

sack an experiment when the 

results were looking positive,” 

Lyssiotis said. “We deem that 

to be too extreme.”

Lyssiotis said he has been 

overwhelmed throughout the 

COVID-19 outbreak and the 

governor’s stay-at-home order, 

with his two kids occupying a 

lot of his time, but he knows 

the same isn’t true for others.

“I know some of my grad 

students are starting to exhibit 

signs of boredom — getting 

silly on Twitter, for example,” 

Lyssiotis said. 

Daniel Kremer is a Rackham 

graduate student in Lyssiotis’s 

lab, hoping to graduate in 

May. He has a paper in the 

revision 
process, 
where 

experts in his field suggest he 

conduct certain experiments 

before publishing the paper. 

However, being unable to go 

into the lab pushes back his 

tentative graduation date to 

the end of the summer.

“It was kind of like ‘You’re 

almost done. You’re almost 

free, almost across the finish 

line, but then yeah,’” Kremer 

said. 

Rackham student Christa 

Ventresca is in the middle of 

lab rotations, where graduate 

students spend several months 

in 
different 
labs 
before 

deciding on one at the end of 

the year. She said her program 

in Biomedical Sciences had 

made it easy for students, 

allowing them to join a lab they 

wanted without completing all 

the rotations. However, for 

Ventresca, spending time in 

the physical lab space was an 

important part of making a 

decision.

“(This situation) makes it 

really hard to pick a lab when 

you’re not physically in the 

lab,” she said.

Rackham student Zachary 

Reese is involved in social 

psychological 
research 

where he performs studies 

on participants from the LSA 

Psychology Subject Pools. With 

the cancellation of all human 

studies, the focus in his lab has 

shifted from data collection 

to data analysis. He said the 

Psychology Department has 

been supportive and is letting 

students work at their own 

pace, 
so 
fulfilling 
degree 

requirements was not a major 

concern. 
However, 
finding 

a job is a pressing challenge 

for Reese, especially with the 

current state of the economy.

“When looking at 2008 and 

the big recession, we know 

(those who graduated that 

year) 
had 
trouble 
finding 

jobs,” Reese said. “But when 

they did find one, they were 

much more grateful and happy 

with what they had ... I think 

finding a silver lining in all of 

this is important.” 

Reporter Varsha Vedapudi 

can be reached at varshakv@

umich.edu.

Thursday, April 9, 2020 — 3
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

According to Hilkert, kare, 

which is being launched as a 

mobile app, is his response to a 

stigma he noticed surrounding 

the 
use 
of 
University 
of 

Michigan’s resources, as well as 

frustration with Counseling and 

Psychology Services’ long wait 

times. 

“A lot of times it might be you 

didn’t do as well as you wanted 

to on an exam, or you had a 

breakup but maybe you’re not in 

a dire mental need,” Hilkert said. 

“We felt like maybe professional 

therapists weren’t needed there 

as much as peers, so we did a 

lot of research into peer-to-peer 

support.”

Hilkert 
began 
work 
on 

the project in fall 2019 with 

co-founders 
Business 
and 

Engineering 
junior 
Stephanie 

Shoo and Engineering senior 

Rodney Shibu. 

“We felt that a lot of students 

maybe needed problem-solving 

and stress relief more than they 

needed actual therapy,” Hilkert 

said. “So, we decided to create 

sort of a mobile application 

community, 
or 
an 
online 

community, that would allow 

students to connect and talk 

with each other anonymously, 

and hopefully make people feel a 

little better.”

Hilkert said he based his 

idea off of Wolverine Support 

Network and their peer-to-peer 

support system. 

“I thought (Wolverine Support 

Network) 
is 
a 
really 
good 

resource,” Hilkert said. “But the 

limitation there is that it’s once 

a week for an hour rather than 

being a live resource where you 

can chat at any time.”

The community feature of the 

kare app works through threads, 

where students can make groups 

about anything they want to chat 

about. 

“It could be, for example, 

‘Econ 101 homework help’ or it 

could be ‘stressed about grades’ 

or it could be ‘internship group,’” 

Hilkert said. “Then (students) 

can all sort of chat anonymously 

and create sub-threads within 

that, where they’re able to talk 

about different things that are 

bothering them.”

With the app being completely 

anonymous, the kare team has 

implemented measures designed 

to ensure kare remains a safe 

community. Users who make 

threatening statements, engage 

in cyberbullying or use names 

will have their account deleted, 

as outlined in the user agreement.

Shoo, 
who 
is 
chief 

procurement officer of kare, 

was involved with running focus 

groups 
and 
conducting 
user 

interviews with students about 

the product. According to Shoo, 

these interviews confirmed the 

need in the community for such 

a resource, with one student 

telling her he does not have 

time to wait weeks to talk to a 

professional who he feels does 

not really understand him.

“It really reaffirmed my time 

that I’ve committed to kare 

because 
that’s 
exactly 
what 

kare does,” Shoo said. “It’s an 

instantaneous 
platform 
that 

allows students to overcome that 

barrier of being worried that 

their issues aren’t big enough.”

With classes moving to an 

online 
format 
and 
students 

having to social distance, the 

team 
said 
they 
decided 
to 

accelerate work and move up the 

launch time to this month rather 

than next semester. The app is set 

to have an early release on April 

17 for the first 1,000 University 

students who sign up. 

“We really want to be a 

resource 
for 
people 
during 

this hectic time,” Hilkert said. 

“We felt like being able to chat 

anonymously, whether it be about 

your internship being potentially 

canceled or about how you’re 

handling 
different 
grading 

policies or different things … (It) 

was really important to launch 

now.” 

They all continue to work on 

the project from home through 

virtual 
meetings 
with 
their 

team, which consists of the three 

co-founders, three students in 

computer science helping on 

the technical side of the app 

and several freshmen helping 

with development and business 

management. 

Because the team wants to 

launch the app as soon as they 

can, kare is currently focused 

solely on the community aspect 

of the app. There are several 

other features the team said 

they hope to integrate in later, 

such as an active listener feature 

where students can connect with 

trained peer listeners. These 

peers would be represented by 

different keywords, such as their 

major or their ethnicity, to help 

students find individuals able to 

relate to their experiences.

Though kare is currently just 

open 
to 
University 
students, 

Shibu, who is chief technology 

officer, said they have plans to 

expand to colleges nationwide, 

and the universities they have 

already 
spoken 
to 
expressed 

interest in the app.

“We hope we can get a bunch 

of users onto the platform from 

a bunch of different universities 

because, since it is a community, 

it will be the more the merrier,” 

Shibu said. “The more people you 

have on, the more people can give 

their feedback.”

Reporter Iulia Dobrin can be 

reached at idobrin@umich.edu.

APP
From Page 1

RESEARCH
From Page 1

MASKS
From Page 2

Once the staff at the Ann 

Arbor District Library heard 

about the AAPS teachers’ use of 

3D printers, they realized they 

can use their 3D printers to pitch 

in. Rich Retyi, communications 

and marketing manager at the 

AADL, 
said 
AADL 
involved 

coworkers in helping to create 

personal protective equipment. 

They have access to four large 

printers, which can print three 

shields at a time, and some 

smaller ones that can do one at 

a time. On average, the library’s 

machines make about 20 shields 

per day.

“We’ve gotten great support 

from everyone at the library, 

which 
is 
really 
important 

because they made it really easy 

for us to get the things we need 

and to just go,” Retyi said. “We’ve 

been doing a lot of stuff through 

our website. We’ve been putting 

out craft videos, entertainment 

videos, that kind of thing on our 

website, but then to be able to add 

in something that’s tangible and 

that’s directly related to what’s 

going on is important for us to be 

able to do.”

Nursing 
sophomore 
Zoe 

Gierlinger 
said 
the 
personal 

protective 
equipment 
being 

created 
by 
the 
Ann 
Arbor 

community 
is 
important 
for 

doctors and nurses to have when 

treating patients. 

“One of the first things that we 

learned about is how to properly 

put on PPE and the different 

types of precautions. It ensures 

not only the safety and protection 

of the patient but also of the 

employees,” Gierlinger said. “For 

nurses taking care of someone 

with an illness, you want to make 

sure that you’re not spreading 

anything else to a patient that 

is already immunocompromised 

and you want to make sure that 

the nurse is protected because 

the nurses are working with 

other patients and coming in 

contact with other health care 

providers. It basically ensures 

the protection of both sides.”

Reporter Brayden Hirsch can be 

reached at braydenh@umich.edu. 

DESIGN BY CAITLIN MARTENS