‘You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do’: Biotech workers assist with COVID-19 response

Years before Cynthia Cassandro joined Cambridge biotech Voyager Therapeutics, she was a nurse working with AIDS patients in New York City. Since late March, she has been volunteering with the Medical Reserve Corps and Rhode Island’s Disaster Medical Assistance Team, screening entrants at an emergency response command center in Rhode Island for signs and symptoms of the virus. Each time she’s volunteered, she’s risked being exposed to the virus. "I couldn’t imagine knowing that I could do it, but not doing it,” Cassandro told the Business Journal. The life sciences industry is full of trained doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, lab technicians and others who may be slightly rusty, but are ready to step in and help at overextended hospitals, care facilities or new medical centers that are being opened up across the state.