Seattle, Washington was one of the first major U.S. cities to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, the city implemented a stay-at-home order, shutting down businesses and restricting gatherings. In response, the COVID-19 Seattle Streetview Campaign project was launched in May 2020 to collect longitudinal photographic data to track the impacts of the pandemic on the city, as well as its recovery. Using technology similar to Google Streetview, the campaign collects data every 2-3 weeks along a consistent route in the city of Seattle. Our research objective is to utilize images collected from the Streetview Campaign project to understand COVID-19’s impact on Seattle’s hospitals and parks following non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as stay-at-home orders. We described and compared changes in the content of images collected in the Streetview Campaign at hospitals and parks in Seattle from May to December 2020. Our data analysis first identified parks and hospitals that were fully visible along the route. Then, we selected a purposive sample of five fully visible hospitals and five fully visible parks, with a goal of diverse socioeconomic representation. In pairs, we each independently reviewed the images at a mutually-agreed upon location and wrote open-ended descriptions about the content of the images (e.g., number of people and cars; presence of other objects like construction equipment and bikes). We met weekly to compare results, identify discrepancies, and formulate a mutually-agreed upon description of the images. We then explored changes in the content of the images over time. Our findings include information about changes observed in images at hospitals and parks throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. They also provide insights about unique contributions of Streetview data can make in understanding the impacts of the pandemic and associated NPIs, as well as inform future analyses using machine learning and corresponding qualitative inquiry.

Hydrogels are a versatile biomaterial commonly used for tissue engineering and drug delivery. In particular, photodegradable hydrogels have facilitated research breakthroughs in multiple fields, including organ development, disease progression, and blood vessel formation. While these reports have contributed greatly to the literature using in vitro experiments, current photodegradable designs are unable to function inside the human body due to their insensitivity to low energy light. Nearly all photodegradable hydrogels incorporate ortho-nitrobenzyl moieties as photosensitizers, which responds to UV light, a wavelength that does not penetrate complex tissue. In order to expand the applications of these photodegradable hydrogels a new crosslinker is needed that cleaves in response to visible light. I am working to develop a new photodegradable crosslinker based on ruthenium polypyridyl linker complexes, which can be structurally tuned to respond to visible light irradiation, leading to exchange of a ligand with water and rapid hydrogel degradation. We have modified the complexes with a reactive azide handle for site-specific incorporation into hydrogel biomaterials that can be transplanted to or formulated within specific bodily locations. Our preliminary results suggest the Ruthenium polypyridyl complexes degrade in the visible spectrum, and previous experiments have concluded that click chemistry allows for PEG-hydrogel incorporation with azide-modified crosslinkers. In this poster, I will describe the synthesis and characterization of one model Ru-based linker, including its photolysis, stability, and applications of the complex in the development of dynamic biomaterials for drug delivery and cell growth in vivo.