Understand and Fight: Notre Dame researchers and the COVID-19 pandemic | News | Notre Dame News | University of Notre Dame Skip To Content Skip To Navigation Skip To Search University of Notre Dame Notre Dame News Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Home Contact Search Menu Home › News › Understand and Fight: Notre Dame researchers and the COVID-19 pandemic Understand and Fight: Notre Dame researchers and the COVID-19 pandemic Published: June 15, 2020 Author: Deanna Csomo McCool Doctoral candidate Chenguang Zhang and postdoc Ceming Wang carry a testing device built by the Chang lab. The device allows a higher extraction efficiency from COVID-19 tests to hopefully reduce false negatives. The hero in Mary Shelley’s “The Last Man,” her second sweeping political science fiction after “Frankenstein,” is left alone in Rome, in a post-apocalyptic world. A global plague apparently took the lives of everyone else, yet he discerns a duty to forge ahead, no matter what. Published in 1826, the novel mirrored Shelley’s life as she despaired at the loss of several of her loved ones. Her sister Fanny died by suicide. Her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, drowned after a sailing accident. She lost another friend, the poet Lord Byron, to infection. Two of her toddlers died — one of malaria, and another from a fever. She kept a kind of plague journal, according to Eileen Hunt Botting, a professor in the department of political science, “in order to fight fatalism.” “She found the courage to persist by writing about the reasons why she had an obligation to continue in this world, and serve in this world, despite the tragedy,” says Botting, whose book, “Artificial Life after Frankenstein,” will be published later this year. “At the end of Shelley’s novel, we find this powerful image of the seemingly last surviving human looking for other survivors, even as he sometimes doubts he will find them.” As Notre Dame’s laboratories went into hibernation in March, many researchers from various fields — chemistry, engineering, political science, psychology, education — looked for ways to pivot their own work toward furthering knowledge into how COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, works, how it’s transmitted, and how our country and world can cope with the unexpected pandemic crisis. They decided to jump into the research at different times, but for the same reason: They knew they could help. To read the story, click here. Posted In: Research Home Experts ND in the News Subscribe About Us Related October 05, 2022 Astrophysicists find evidence for the presence of the first stars October 04, 2022 NIH awards $4 million grant to psychologists researching suicide prevention September 29, 2022 Notre Dame, Ukrainian Catholic University launch three new research grants September 27, 2022 Notre Dame, Trinity College Dublin engineers join to advance novel treatment for cystic fibrosis September 22, 2022 Climate-prepared countries are losing ground, latest ND-GAIN index shows For the Media Contact Office of Public Affairs and Communications Notre Dame News 500 Grace Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Pinterest © 2022 University of Notre Dame Search Mobile App News Events Visit Accessibility Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube LinkedIn