Interactions Members Assist in the Fight Against COVID-19

the novel coronavirus, 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 COVID-19 research makes progress

COVID-19 research at Argonne continues at the laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source (APS), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility, to precisely determine the structures of the 28 unique proteins that make up the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. As these structures are determined, they are posted into an international Protein Data Bank (PDB), compiled by researchers around the world.

Brookhaven National Laboratory
CERN
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Fermilab

Ten ways Fermilab advanced science and technology in 2020

More than 3,500 researchers from around the world collaborate with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory to develop state-of-the-art technologies and solve the mysteries of matter, energy, space and time.

Physicists put their expertise toward ventilator shortage

It was mid-March, and physicist Cristiano Galbiati was not where he expected to be. The professor at both Princeton University and Gran Sasso Science Institute was meant to be in Sardinia, thinking about the cryogenic distillation column he was building for the DarkSide-20k dark matter experiment.

Simplified ventilator designed by particle physics community gets FDA approval

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.

Simplified ventilator designed by particle physics community gets FDA approval

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.

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INFN

INFN's (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) efforts to combat COVID-19

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.

"ANTI_COVID-LAB" was born in Catania to test fabrics for masks and anti-COVID-19 PPE

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

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.

Berkeley Lab

Berkeley Lab to Conduct R&D to Improve the Nation’s COVID-19 Testing Capabilities

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

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.

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New Nikhef computer cluster will be used first to help fight the coronavirus

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.

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UKRI-Logo

Quantum projects launched to solve the universe’s mysteries

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is supporting seven projects with a £31 million investment to demonstrate how quantum technologies could solve some of the greatest mysteries in fundamental physics.

Just as quantum computing promises to revolutionise traditional computing, technologies such as quantum sensors have the potential to radically change our approach to understanding our universe.

Upgrade to Large Hadron Collider underway

CERN’s High Luminosity LHC project (HL-LHC), a large international collaboration, will deliver cutting-edge research and essential components over the next few years.

It will upgrade the LHC by increasing the number of particle collisions by a factor of 10.

SLAC

SLAC joins the global fight against COVID-19

The lab is responding to the coronavirus crisis by imaging disease-related biomolecules, developing standards for reliable coronavirus testing and enabling other essential research.

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Health Canada approves Vexos Inc. for the MVM ventilator

Health Canada has authorized Vexos Inc., a Canadian electronics manufacturing and custom materials solutions company, for the Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM) ventilator. This approval means that Vexos Inc. can manufacture and supply ventilators as part of a national, made-in-Canada, effort to treat patients most severely affected by the COVID-19 virus.

The US FDA authorizes the MVM within the scope of the emergency use authorization.

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

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

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

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. 

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TRIUMF collaborates on international ventilator project

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.

WIPAC

UW–Madison astrophysicists donate computing resources to aid COVID-19 research.

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.