Interactions Members Assist in the Fight Against COVID-19

Efforts against COVID-19

Many laboratories around the world, including Interactions members, are involved in the battle against the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. We will maintain this page with updated news about their efforts.

Argonne National Laboratory

Argonne’s researchers and facilities playing a key role in the fight against COVID-19
2020-03-27
Argonne is bringing the power of its scientific leadership and state-of-the-art user facilities to bear in the global battle against COVID-19.
New drug target found for COVID-19
2020-03-20
Scientists discover critical protein that lets virus hide from immune system.

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Fighting COVID with computing: Fermilab, Brookhaven, Open Science Grid dedicate computational power to COVID-19 research
2020-04-27
As of April 27, Fermilab has contributed a total of 1.8 million core hours to the pandemic-fighting effort carried out by projects such as Folding@home, which is simulating how viral proteins fold to help scientists design better therapeutics.
AI Fast-tracks Drug Discovery to Fight COVID-19
2020-04-23
Deep learning paired with drug docking and molecular dynamics simulations identify small molecules to shut down virus
Brookhaven Lab Mobilizes Resources in Fight Against COVID-19
2020-04-06
Brookhaven Lab scientists and staff combine expertise across disciplines and use Lab’s unique facilities to address drug development, medical supplies, information processing, and more
Researchers Working on Computational Models to Design Ways to Treat COVID-19
2020-04-06
Project will sift through 1 billion drug-like molecules and 60 sites on virus to find most promising options for targeted drug development

CERN

HEV – a stripped-down ventilator to help COVID-19 patients
2020-04-16
A team led by physicists from the LHCb collaboration has developed a design for a novel ventilator to help patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms.
CERN delivers protective equipment to local communities
2020-04-14
As part of the CERN against COVID-19 initiative, CERN has produced and delivered personal protective equipment to local organisations in the front line.
CERN establishes task force to contribute to global fight against COVID-19
2020-04-08
CERN establishes a task force to identify and support contributions from the Organization to combatting COVID-19 pandemic
Initiatives from the CERN community in global fight against COVID-19
2020-04-08
The “CERN against COVID-19” taskforce, which coordinates the actions, has received hundreds of suggestions to contribute to the efforts to curb the pandemic

Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron

Scientists X-ray coronavirus proteins
2020-03-24
Screening could greatly accelerate the search for a drug

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Simplified ventilator designed by particle physics community gets FDA approval
2020-05-05
In a little over a month, a team of physicists and engineers from around the world took a simplified ventilator design from concept all the way through approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This major milestone marks the ventilator as safe for use in the United States under the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization, which helps support public health during a crisis.
Fighting COVID with computing: Fermilab, Brookhaven, Open Science Grid dedicate computational power to COVID-19 research
2020-04-27
As of April 27, Fermilab has contributed a total of 1.8 million core hours to the pandemic-fighting effort carried out by projects such as Folding@home, which is simulating how viral proteins fold to help scientists design better therapeutics.

Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (CNRS)

COVID-19: IN2P3 mobilized to ensure research continuity
2020-03-30
The IN2P3 makes every effort to ensure the continuity of administrative and research activities.

Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare

INFN's (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) efforts to combat COVID-19
2020-05-01
The National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Rome, (or INFN - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) has been working diligently to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.
See their concerted efforts, from computer simulation to ventilator fabrication, on the INFN COVID-19 Projects page.
COVID-19: NEW TARGETS FOR THERAPY THANKS TO THE INNOVATION OF THE ITALIAN SPIN-OFF SIBYLLA
2020-04-29
Joint press release Sibylla Biotech-INFN: New binding pockets of the ACE2 protein found for subsequent pharmacological studies, and 35 promising molecules selected from the computer among the 9000 analyzed, including one molecule of the chemical family of hydroxychloroquine. The next step is to go to the laboratory.
"ANTI_COVID-LAB" was born in Catania to test fabrics for masks and anti-COVID-19 PPE
2020-04-17
The Anti-Covid Lab "has been developed by the University of Catania and by the National Laboratories of the South (LNS) of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics for the verification of the functional qualities of fabrics intended for the realization of masks and others PPE for the prevention of contagion in the COVID-19 emergency.
BIOMOLECULAR SIMULATIONS AND URGENT COMPUTING: THE ITALIAN CHALLENGE AT COVID 19
2020-04-03
Stop the virus before it can penetrate cells by neutralizing your Trojan horse. This is the challenge launched at COVID-19 by Sibylla Biotech, a spin-off of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) and of the Universities of Trento and Perugia, which is working on the identification of an anti COVID-19 therapy with a technology unique that studies the behavior of proteins in a completely new way and quickly.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Berkeley Lab to Conduct R&D to Improve the Nation’s COVID-19 Testing Capabilities
2020-04-22
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is part of a multi-laboratory working group that recently received DOE Office of Science funding under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to conduct R&D to help improve the nation’s COVID-19 testing capabilities.
COVID-19 Related Research at Berkeley Lab
2020-04-03
Scientists around the world are joining together to study the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 and to expedite the development of possible vaccines and treatments to prevent its infectious disease, named COVID-19. At the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), some unique capabilities and facilities are being called into action quickly to assist in the national COVID-19 response.

Nationaal Instituut voor Subatomaire Fysica

New Nikhef computer cluster will be used first to help fight the coronavirus
2020-04-24
Nikhef is dedicating their new and freshly installed computer cluster – which is still in its test phase – to the calculation efforts in order to fight the coronavirus. The datacentre is offering their computing power to the Rosetta@home project of the University of Washington, that tries to unravel the underlying protein structure with massive calculation nodes.

Science and Technology Facilities Council

STFC's Hartree Centre speeds up the search for the most effective Coronavirus treatment
2020-04-14
Supercomputers at STFC’s Hartree Centre are part of a massive global project to speed up the search to find the best existing anti-viral drugs that are most effective for treating for COVID-19 – and anyone with a personal computer can help!

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

SLAC joins the global fight against COVID-19
2020-04-16
The lab is responding to the coronavirus crisis by imaging disease-related biomolecules, developing standards for reliable coronavirus testing and enabling other essential research.

SNOLAB

The US FDA authorizes the MVM within the scope of the emergency use authorization.
2020-05-05
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Emergency Use Authorization to the ventilator designed by an international collaboration of nuclear and particle physicists, the Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM). This is an important step in getting the MVM ventilator to patients around the world who are suffering the respiratory effects of the COVID-19 virus.
SNOLAB collaborates on international ventilator project
2020-04-24
The Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM) design centres around the gas handling and control systems found in dark matter experiments combined with the 1961 Manley ventilator to produce a simple design. MVM uses readily available materials, eliminating supply chain limitations for more complex designs. It is open-source and can be accessed and modified by nations around the world in an effort to rapidly produce ventilators to address the immediate needs.
Sudbury community 3D prints headbands for face shields
2020-04-02
Face shields are part of the recommended PPE for healthcare workers who may be exposed to COVID-19 through the course of their work ... Not only can the headband be printed quickly, but its design aligns with the spacing of a three-hole punch, allowing for a multitude of materials to be used for the shield itself, even “something as simple as a clear plastic report cover”.
SNOLAB makes PPE donation to Health Sciences North
2020-03-27
With personal protective equipment for frontline workers being an immediate concern, SNOLAB has taken an inventory of cleanroom personal protective equipment onsite and brought much of it up from underground earlier this week. The science team has been in contact with Health Sciences North (HSN) to determine where we can help meet the needs of local healthcare workers.

TRIUMF

TRIUMF collaborates on international ventilator project
2020-05-04
The objective of the Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM) collaboration is to design, develop, certify, and build an open-source ventilator that is safe, powerful, yet gentle, on the lungs. TRIUMF has contributed across the board to the Canadian effort, including testing, certification, and design of the control module and associated software. In a recent important step for the MVM collaboration, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted Emergency Use Authorization for the MVM prototype in the United States.
TRIUMF community rallies in response to COVID-19 pandemic
2020-04-24
In the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic, groups from across the TRIUMF community have mobilized to support a variety of health-focused initiatives.

Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center

UW–Madison astrophysicists donate computing resources to aid COVID-19 research.
2020-05-15
While IceCube remains operational, its home research center at UW–Madison, the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, WIPAC, is temporarily providing some of its available computing resources to Folding@home. This citizen-science distributed-computing project crowdsources computationally intensive tasks like simulating protein dynamics. Distributed computing projects like Folding@home combine the power of thousands of individual computers contributed by their owners to process different portions of data simultaneously, significantly speeding up their results.