When COVID-19 became a recognized pandemic in the U.S., the APS was prompt in responding to help its members. In April 2020, the Council discussed what the Society could do for the physics community at length through virtual meetings in these difficult times. The APS immediately acted as a source of evidence-based information by providing open access to a large number of papers from APS journals on topics such as pandemic models, statistical analyses, big data, etc.

Concurrently, most members of the scientific community were brainstorming on how to use their knowledge and experience for the benefit of the public. For instance, as published in APS NEWS in May, two theoretical physicists from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Nigel Goldenfeld and Sergei Maslov, are credited with convincing Governor Pritzker of Illinois of the necessity of a lockdown in the state. In March, these multidisciplinary scientists modeled the effects of imposing a lockdown and the impact of its postponement. They found that without mitigation enacted by April 1, Chicago's ICU capacity would be exceeded. Governor Pritzker ordered the lockdown on March 21, preventing any overload of the state's medical facilities.

At the same time, in mid-March physicist Cristiano Galbiati, professor at both Princeton University and Gran Sasso Institute (searching for dark matter), was in Milan, sheltering with his family. Italy was one of the epicenters of infection after the outbreak in China. Italian hospitals had run out of ventilators to provide oxygen to COVID-19 patients with the most severe respiratory complications. A few days later, he started a collaboration that would soon involve more than 200 physicists, engineers, business representatives and physicians in over 10 countries. These volunteers broke into teams and met daily to discuss tasks and results while assembling and programming the so-called Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM). The MVM mechanical design - originating from the Manley ventilator from the 1960s - is made with purchasable parts and requires only compressed oxygen and electricity to run. However, the device's brain or control system is based on state-of-the-art electronics and software.

As much as the team felt comfortable within a large collaboration, which is typical in large physics experiments, the medical specifications were daunting at first. The body needs 15 breaths per minute, the lungs are extremely delicate, two modes of ventilation were required, and the machine had to be user-friendly for its operators. The researchers and the physicians eventually developed a common technical language and started building prototypes in Italy. Physicists coded the device's intelligent central command unit in consultation with doctors. By early April, completed prototype MVM units were being shipped around the world, including at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) and in Canada, for rigorous testing.

Working from home, researchers didn't have access to physical labs and had to connect various components over the internet. A microcontroller in Italy could connect and receive software written in the U.S.; then, someone in Canada would test the interface on a touch screen. Nobel laureate Art Mc Donald led the Canadian effort, and several researchers contributed to the MVM at FNAL. Marco Del Tutto, a neutrino physicist and Lederman Fellow, worked on critical parts of the software and microcontrollers. A Lederman Fellow, Elena Gramellini, liaised with doctors on the front lines in Italy and created the MVM user manual. Both Del Tutto and Gramellini are alumni of the Italian Graduate Students Program at FNAL, from Summers 2014 and 2010. This training program's organizing team includes Prof. Emeritus Giorgio Bellettini and Prof. Simone Donati from the University of Pisa, and grants successful students with European Supplementary Credits.

In April, Eric Dahl, a FNAL and Northwestern University scientist, was able to use a breathing simulator at the Northwestern Simulation Training Center to test one of the first prototypes and to provide input to the MVM team. Jen Raaf, a neutrino physicist expert in liquid-argon experiments, worked with the medical device manufacturer Elemaster and led the effort to bring together all the elements needed for FDA emergency use authorization, which came on May 1. Others that contributed include Mike Wang, Anne Heavey, and Stephen Pordes. Raaf and Dahl are still testing several more prototypes with a breathing simulator at Cook County Hospital. Tests of the final product for certification in Canada and Europe are now underway. The MVM is designed to operate in two modes: full ventilation of a sedated patient and breathing support. The MVM is an open-source device and anyone in the world is allowed to make their own. The Elemaster company, just outside Milan, and other manufacturers build the first bulk production and get ventilators to where they are most needed.

Other facilities from the physical sciences that have proven critical in the present global effort to fight the COVID-19 pandemic are synchrotron light sources. Their high brilliance X-ray beams permit researchers to create maps at the scale of molecules and atoms of the 3-dimensional structure of proteins relevant to diseases. Light sources in the U.S. and Italy, initially designed to provide powerful beams of soft X-rays, Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste's Elettra ring and Berkeley's Advanced Light Source (ALS), have been committed to experiments aimed at identifying antiviral drugs, potential vaccines and diagnostic methods to tackle the current pandemic. Similarly, at hard X-ray light sources such as the APS at Argonne National Laboratory and NSLS_II at Brookhaven X-ray beamlines are being used to determine the atomic-level structures of SARS-Cov-2 components.

In Trieste, the experimental stations of Elettra synchrotron light source and FERMI free-electron laser are now open to researchers worldwide, who can request access to the beamlines through a special priority procedure perform remote measurements. Using highly sophisticated techniques in collaboration with the external users, Elettra research staff can perform urgent studies aimed at understanding the biological macromolecules that make up the SARS-CoV-2 viral particle responsible for COVID-19. Further experiments on Elettra are aimed at studying the effectiveness of known antiviral drugs.

Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste is also an active partner in the European project EXSCALATE4CoV (E4C), coordinated by Dompé Farmaceutici, and funded by Horizon 2020 through a special procedure needed for fast launch of research activities. The project's main goal is to identify to small molecules, safe in man, drugs active against COVID-19.

At the Berkeley Laboratory in the U.S., a small team of ALS staff members has several experiments for other scientists who controlled the work remotely. Only COVID-19-related experiments approved by ALS and Berkeley Lab leadership are allowed at the ALS. Berkeley leadership has noted that "None of the work involves any live samples of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. The samples include crystallized viral proteins that cannot cause infection. Additional samples to be analyzed include host-cell proteins required for infection by the virus."

The earliest experiments at the ALS have used beamlines that have been expressly designed to perform macromolecular crystallography. These experiments include work led by university research groups from the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The ALS is also performing proprietary experiments supported by major pharmaceutical corporations such as Novartis, Vir Biotechnology, and IniXium.

Macromolecular crystallography has long been a vital part of the research portfolio at the world's major synchrotron light sources. It is gratifying that these capabilities can be deployed rapidly in the fight against SARS-Cov-2 thanks to the many advances in beamline technology, precision robotics, and effective and secure telecommunication links between user researchers and the operations and experimental support staff at the synchrotron light source laboratories.

This article is based on information provided by Prof. Alfonso Franciosi, president of Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste and from Mr. Glenn Roberts, Jr. via an article in the Berkeley Lab daily report, Elements. Other sources that have been used include Fermilab NEWS, Symmetry, University of Cincinnati News, and Kane County Chronicle.

Emanuela Barzi is a Senior Scientist at Fermilab and an Adjunct Professor and Graduate Faculty at OSU. A 2012 Fellow of the APS and a senior member of the IEEE, Barzi has been an active member of the high-energy accelerator and physics communities for 25+ years. The Superconducting R&D lab that she founded is a world leading center in low- and high-temperature superconductor technologies for the next generation of particle accelerators. Barzi is a member of the team that this year produced a world-record field of 14.5 T for a Nb3Sn accelerator dipole magnet, is FNAL coordinator of NEWS and INTENSE, two Marie Skłodowska-Curie networks, and is a member of the Muon g-2 Collaboration. She has co-authored 239 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters with 5400+ citations. In 2010 she was awarded the Japanese “Superconductor Science and Technology Prize.” Barzi also established extensive educational programs at FNAL for graduate students in Physics and Engineering, including the Italian Graduate Students Program at FNAL, that have benefited hundreds of young professionals, and has mentored 30+ students in her lab for internships, Masters and PhDs. Currently a Councilor of the APS FIP, she was recently elected in the APS Council Steering Committee.

William Barletta is Adjunct Professor of Physics at MIT and Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Economics of the University of Ljubljana. He is Director Emeritus of the Accelerator Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is a member of the Scientific Council of the Centro Fermi and Museum in Rome, the Advisory Board of the John Adams Institute in the UK, the Scientific Council of DESY in Germany, senior advisor to the President of Sincrotrone Trieste, and Coordinating Editor-in-Chief of Nuclear Instruments and Methods-A and co-Editor-in-Chief of Physics Open.

He holds a Ph.D. (Physics) from the University of Chicago and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Foreign Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Bologna Institute in Italy.

Disclaimer - The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Forum on International Physics Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS.