Photograph courtesy of Harvard Medical School
Harvard is an extraordinary place. Decades before the current pandemic began, basic research conducted at the University had laid the foundations for understanding the coronavirus family of viruses, whose spiked, crown-like appearance inspired the name. When the SARS pandemic erupted in 2002, Harvard researchers were the first to identify the receptor the virus used to enter human cells, and to predict the epidemiological trajectory of its spread. The value of such knowledge, which guides public-health measures that have already saved countless lives, and the development of vaccines and therapeutics that will save countless more, is hard to assess most of the time until suddenly, unexpectedly, it proves invaluable.