4/22/2020

Timothy Sheahan, a research scientist with a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology, is one of only a handful of scientists in the country testing cures for the coronavirus. Here he is pictured in the lab at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill.

NORTH SMITHFIELD When Timothy Sheahan was working his first job as a dishwasher at Coffee & Cream, one of his coworkers gave him the nickname professor. He wasnt an academic star at Mount Saint Charles Academy, where he graduated in 1994, he didnt take AP biology but he enjoyed science and would go on to study it at the University of New Hampshire.

His name was Danny, and he ran the drive-thru, Sheahan recalled during a phone interview last week. And because I was a nerd, he would call me professor. And I just realized that now Im a professor, and its ironic.

Sheahan isnt just a professor. Hes also a research scientist at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The lab he works in specializes in coronaviruses and is one of only a handful of labs around the country working on a cure for COVID-19.

Were tasked with being the front line of evaluating new things that could save lives in the U.S. and across the globe, he said Its a position that people like me are rarely in, especially under this time scale where things need to be done as soon as possible, and you do it because thats whats happening now.

Sheahan is no stranger to coronaviruses, the family of viruses that includes the strain that causes COVID-19. After graduating from the University of New Hampshire, he worked in a lab at Harvard Medical School and completed his PhD work at UNC Chapel Hill, later returning as a faculty member. Much of his work has focused on developing treatments to existing coronaviruses, including the ones that caused the SARS outbreak in China in 2002 and the MERS outbreak in the Middle East in 2012.

When COVID-19 began to emerge late last year, hed been experimenting with remdesivir, a drug originally developed by the pharmaceutical company Gilead to treat Ebola, to see if it would work against MERS.

But then this new coronavirus comes along, and we start studying it, he said. We had a pretty good feeling that remdesivir would work in a lab against this virus, and that turns out to be true.

Remdesivir is now one of the leading drugs being studied in the U.S. as a possible treatment to COVID-19, but theres still a lot of work to do. Sheahan and his colleagues accomplish that work in their lab in full safety gear, including scrubs, hazmat suits, gloves, booties and enclosed hoods that receive clean air from battery-powered respirators. Everyone who works at the lab has an FBI background check and does their work in biosafety cabinets to prevent any escape of the virus.

Despite the deadly viruses around him, Sheahan said the lab is a safe and comforting place to work, especially at a time when hes more likely to catch COVID-19 walking into the grocery store than cocooned beneath layers of safety equipment.

At the same time as hes battling a worldwide disease, hes also juggling the pressures of being a parent with two young kids at home. A typical day involves waking up and spending the morning helping his kids with schoolwork before heading into the lab around noon. Then its back home for dinner and some brief family time before working from home until midnight. He works through weekends, a schedule that makes him feel more like a PhD student than an assistant professor in his 40s.

When I get home and read two chapters of Harry Potter to my kids before bed, that is a breath of fresh air, he said.

Sheahan said he tries to talk about things other than coronavirus when hes at home, but its difficult when everyone, including his parents, Rudy and Helene Sheahan in North Smithfield, has suddenly become well versed in what he does. Finding himself at the center of the worlds response, he said, has been weird, and something he never wouldve predicted when he was 15.

At the time, he was more interested in recording music, and said one of his highlights at Mount Saint Charles was when his English teacher, John Guevremont, played a song hed written for the class. Now, he finds himself in the national spotlight, not as the guitarist of a rock band, but as a leading expert on a worldwide pandemic. Hes often quoted as an expert on the coronavirus, and last week he was the subject of a profile in GQ magazine.

Its one thing to be in the news and give comments about things, but its another thing to be the focus of an article in a national publication, he said.

Sheahan said he couldnt predict how the pandemic will play out, but our most powerful tool will be a vaccine to bring the situation under control. Until that time, he said, were likely to continue to see waves of social distancing measures to keep the disease in check.

Theres a ton of work that needs to be done, and everybody is just coming together to make it happen, he said.

Timothy Sheahan suits up in protective gear before working with virus specimens.

Read more:
Meet the North Smithfield native working on a cure for coronavirus - Valley Breeze