UNM professor receives grant for COVID-19 research

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – There are more efforts in New Mexico to understand the virus to help people moving forward.

A UNM professor who is breaking boundaries, and taking on some important research.

Monica Rosas-Lemus is a professor at UNM, and she recently received a special grant from the National Institutes of Health to help with some very important research.

“I am trying to understand many of the outcomes or the main effects that we can see on COVID infection,” said Dr. Rosas-Lemus. 

The research is said to help find more effective treatments and fight any new viruses in the future. This comes just weeks after the COVID-19 public health order ended.

While most things are back to normal and social distancing seems to be a distant phrase within itself, researching this virus is still a very important and relevant task.

“One of the things that I think that I learned and that most of the people in the field learned is that we are not ready to treat viral infections,” said Roasa-Lemus. 

Rosas-Lemus is a Mexico-born and raised. She says being one of the five women to receive this grant means a lot too.

“I’m really proud of being part of these five very successful women. I have been supported by women my entire career, and I think that is because we know it’s hard, right?” said Rosas-Lemus. 

And as she continues her research, she hopes to inspire others along the way. 

“I feel like a huge responsibility first on supporting people like me, and to just keep going, and not only for, for letting a woman like in general, like every single girl can be a good scientist first,” said Rosas-Lemus.