Coronavirus pandemic forces some research labs to shut down, with uncertain futures for scientific projects

Scientists who study coronaviruses or design antiviral therapies are grinding away at their research like never before. But some of their counterparts in other academic laboratories are winding their work down, as the coronavirus pandemic leads to institutional shuttering and people avoiding working in close contact.

“Our goal is to minimize the number of people in our facilities at any one time, while allowing science that is absolutely essential to continue on-site,” Eric Lander, president of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, wrote in an email to staff Saturday morning announcing that “non-critical” work at the institute had to wrap up by this coming Wednesday.

“We don’t know when these non-critical lab activities will resume, but we anticipate that the pause in lab activities will last at least a few weeks,”