CERN helps researchers to fight the pandemic
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By: Dominique Desaunay Follow
CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has announced the creation of an "action group to identify and support the contributions of physicists and researchers" to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. Their research work made it possible to develop a portable ventilator capable of relieving the first signs of respiratory discomfort in patients suffering from the disease.
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Founded in 1954, CERN , the European Organization for Nuclear Research, located on either side of the Franco-Swiss border, near Geneva, is a Mecca for fundamental physics, entirely devoted to the discovery of the constituents and the laws of the Universe.
From the start of the pandemic, the teams of researchers and engineers who deal with the center's accelerators such as that of the LHC, the most powerful in the world, and very high-tech detectors, which make it possible to study the collisions of subatomic particles, went into confined mode. Rather than remaining inactive, all of the physicists around the world who work for CERN have decided to contribute to the collective effort to fight Covid-19.
Collaboration with health experts
An action group called “ CERN against Covid-19 ” is set up to work in close collaboration with experts in health, medicine, epidemiology and the rescue services of civil society. Concrete projects are soon to come out of the labs, such as " an innovative medical ventilator, transportable and easy to build ", explains Frédérick Bordry, director of accelerators and technologies at CERN.
This ventilator called HEV is not intended for resuscitation services, but for patients with mild breathing difficulties. CERN is also developing other technologies to relieve hospital staff who suffer from equipment shortages
From gel to protective visors via supercomputers
Its chemistry laboratories, for example, produce tons of hydroalcoholic gel intended for emergency physicians in the Franco-Swiss region, protective visors for caregivers are 3D printed in its high-performance prototyping workshops. The Center also places the colossal digital power of its supercomputers at the service of the international scientific community , in order to help in the search for a treatment or a vaccine.
Now all the physicists of the infinitely small at CERN and around the world are on the warpath, all determined to eradicate this microscopic but infinitely bad virus.
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