At this moment, nothing we can say to you, and to your family, friends, and colleagues, is more important than this: be safe, be well. We care about you all. Right now on the Argonne web site you can read an excellent article by Jared Sagoff, of Argonne’s Communications and Public Affairs Division, entitled “Argonne’s researchers and facilities playing a key role in the fight against COVID-19.” It captures the remarkable breadth of scientific power that Argonne is marshalling against the coronavirus. This includes the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility in its role as part of the federal COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, and the National Preparedness Analytics Center, “which is currently helping state emergency management agencies conduct rapid analyses around supply chain resilience in the context of pandemic planning.” By extension, the article reinforces again the unique capabilities and strengths of the Department of Energy’s national laboratory system.

Of course, the APS and our macromolecular crystallography beamlines and users have been engaged in this effort from the outset. Allow me to repeat something from the article mentioned above: “This situation makes clear the importance of science in solving critical problems facing our world.” I believe that to be true, now perhaps more than at any time in our recent history. This is a unique moment; one that science is uniquely equipped to confront.

Another truth brought home by this moment is that collaboration, cooperation, and community are as indispensable to society as they are to science. I could not begin to list by name all of the people in our user community, the collaborative access team beamline operations staff, our APS personnel, and especially the members of our MX community, all of whom have risen to the occasion in remarkable fashion. “Hero” is a word that can be casually thrown around, but in my opinion, it applies in this instance, to these people.

Be sure to watch the APS home page for status announcements. The latest notices are rounded up in this newsletter; please note in particular the invaluable COVID-19 research portal that provides access to x-ray light source structural biology resources.

We are all eagerly awaiting the time when our daily interactions are again real and not virtual, when we can gather in the experiment hall and watch the data flow from our remarkable machine, and when we can meet in person to hear about discoveries and catch up.

See you then.
Stephen Streiffer