How Willowbrook grad is working with ‘a laser focus’ to find COVID-19 treatment

Willowbrook graduate and Purdue University professor Rob Stahelin is focusing his research on creating treatments to slow the COVID-19 pandemic. "I just feel like this work is what I'm supposed to be doing," he said. Photos courtesy of Purdue University

Willowbrook alumnus Rob Stahelin (class of 1994), a Retter Professor of Pharmacy at Purdue University, is on the cutting edge of researching treatments to combat the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Stahelin’s work was recently featured in the Daily Herald, and that article by Kevin Schmit can be viewed online at https://tinyurl.com/rnktdc2. According to the article, Stahelin has “spent the bulk of his professional career working on Ebola and other viruses, but that has been put on hold, as all energy focuses on the current crisis.”

“We want to get data collected and hopefully antibodies and drugs tested very quickly,” Stahelin said in the article. “You have a purpose and a laser focus of just trying to get things done and move it forward.”

“I’m very hopeful,” Stahelin added. “There will be a vaccine. There’s just too much at stake. And in months we’ll know more about some of the drugs people are testing in the U.S., and there might be much better hope for some of the drugs that already treat other diseases that might be effective against this virus. I just feel like this work is what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s our job to provide a little bit of reassurance that science can solve problems. It’s nice to be part of that.”

Stahelin credits his time at Willowbrook for sparking an initial interest in science, and he was named as a 2015 recipient of Willowbrook’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Alumni and staff members who have helped make Willowbrook the great school it is today are honored through the school’s annual Distinguished Alumni and Distinguished Service Recognition Program. Read more about that program at https://www.dupage88.net/site/page/453.