This publication was part of a historical publication event of my career since it was my contribution to COVID-19 research and development. In the Fall of 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I became a running race director for a race called the Virtual Run for Coronavirus Research. Many people on my social media through Instagram and Facebook participated in the race, either by walking a 5K or running a selected distance. We had an amazing community fundraising outcome. We also hosted a second fundraiser through Experiment.com, which was also very successful. This past week our first research project was completed and published in the journal BioChem by MDPI, entitled, “Novel Tetrazolium-Based Colorimetric Assay for Helicase nsp13 in SARS-CoV-2," by Pham, T.M. et al. The specific project outcomes were that we developed an assay that can be used to test therapeutic drugs / compounds against the enzyme helicase belonging to the virus. During the pandemic, another assay was being used that has a more complicated understanding. The principles underlying our assay are simplified and taught at the undergraduate level. Moreover, I decided to have the work published in an open-access format so that anyone can read this article immediately, around the world. Four undergraduate students in my laboratory became co-authors on the manuscript. Two patent applications were also filed (one in the US and one in Brazil). The main scientific take home messages from this work are as follows: (i) a novel colorimetric helicase assay was developed, (ii) the colorless reagent INT was reduced to the water-soluble chromophore INT-formazan, and (iii) the assay is rapid, sensitive, and has the potential to be further developed to the HTS platform.