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“Of course, we knew that the quarantine measures were coming”, experimental phyisicist Sense Jan van der Molen says. “So we had meetings were we decided which parts of the work could be done at home.” But after the announcement, there was little time left: “We were taking measurements on Friday the 13th, and then suddenly the new rules were in place. The past week, every person in my group has worked from home. Our instruments work on high voltage and create a very strong vacuum – you can't just pull the plug and go home. So we had staff going past every machine, to shut them down in a proper way.”

“The amount of work that you can do from home, depends on the type of project that you're working on, and where exactly you are in that project. Our group follows a rythm where you typically do measurements for one week, and then spend two or three weeks working on the results and preparing new measurements. That means that some people can go ahead without any trouble, and others less so.”

When Mare finally manages to talk to people in a period where everyone has to suddenly work from home with their families and move all the courses online at the same time, that is the recurring theme. For some researchers, there isn't that much change, and for others the corona restrictions pose a serious problem.

Like Lego

Gerard van Westen is a computational pharmacologist, which means he uses powerful computers for drug discovery. When the chemical structures of potential drug targets are known, his software searches for small molecules that would influence these structures. “It's not unlike Lego, really”, he says: “Does it fit properly? And if it doesn't, what could you do to make it fit?”

One of Leiden University's supercomputers was just installed, and can be worked remotely. “That means we can basically do the same work, now. Every once in a while there is a problem with the server, and someone has to go in there to fix it: one hundred percent remote work is not possible yet, even for us.”

But of course, if Alice says that substance X might block brain molecule Y in a therapeutical way, you want to know if she's right. Which means doing experiments. “The truly experimental work is completely shut down right now”, Van Westen says. “Last week, you were allowed into the building only with permission, and only to pick up your stuff and to put an end to your experiments. It's of course extra troublesome for the students doing their internships. In our group, they work with computers and they can do their work, but usually, you basically have to spend nine months doing lab work. How do you get these people to do something useful, but without running up a delay?”

Van Westen himself is doing useful stuff, at least. Recently, a lot of knowledge has been published about a newly discovered combination of molecules: the parts of the coronavirus. “There is now a huge crowdsourced research going on into which substances might interact with these structures. It's a great motivator, working on something that is so practical right now.”

“Well, we do have problems, on all levels”, behavioural biologist Carel ten Cate sighs. On paper, he is already retired, but he still helps out with the teaching, and he is still supervising some PhD students. “They do experiments with zebra finches that are raised under special conditions (like this cool experiment with budgies - Mare). Once the birds are adults, we can do the tests. The animals that were ready to be tested right now, are growing older, and we cannot simply wait with this. The board of the Faculty of Science gave us permission to finish these experiments, and thankfully, everybody is trying to accomodate us. To keep the risk of infection as small as possible, we have timetable that should prevent several people from working at the same time.”

Microbiologist Dennis Claessen has an easier time of it. “You can easily stop microbiological experiments. You can freeze it, and thaw it again when needed. Practically, it's not much of a problem, but the delay is annoying. On the other hand, it does give you time to whittle away at the ever-growing mountain of unread research publications. I've told my PhD-students to do the same. Your thesis has to start with a literature review anyway, so you might as well take the time for that now. The next two months are good for doing the things you normally don't get around to all that much.”

So, what if the coronatine lasts longer? “Then we're going to run out of work to do, really.”

Dried out

Van der Molen: “There are no congresses, collaborations can't progress. This a world we don't know yet, for experimental science at least. I have a few datasets lying around that I probably would never have gotten around to otherwise, but at some point everything is dried out. Our work is to tinker, to develop new technologies. One or two months are okay, but after that we'll really have to think of something to do.”

Claessen: “There may be positive changes as well though, if you look at how quickly everyone is learning to work from home. Scientific work, in the sense of congresses and meetings, will change permanently. Hopefully, we scientists can take some steps to reduce the amount of flying traditionally necessary for our line of work.”