Novel coronavirus, company statement

With the rapidly evolving situation worldwide, Seanasol Research is following the developments very closely and we will be taking every effort to minimise the risk of transmission within the UK. It is our duty to act responsibly for the good of our community, and our colleagues, locally and abroad. We are suspending all face-to-face meetings and opting to move our discussions online via communication services. We are working together with our collaborators to establish a medium of communication that will mean it will be business as usual, while taking every effort to contain the spread of the virus.

Times like these show that it takes communities working together to reach stability and control. We have also seen certain manufacturers shutting down their production lines and in exchange producing medical equipment, either on request of their governments’ or through decision of their own. And for many of us, like consumers, it is a time when change seems as frightening as the novel coronavirus itself.

The control of viruses will be something that we, as a population, will need to manage in the future, as cities become packed and infrastructures are stretched, it makes it the perfect breeding ground for pathogens to transmit from host to host. And these pathogens still place an unprecedented risk to communities built on the Moon or Mars, were a single infection could wipe out our entire efforts in terraforming these environments. We need to establish an understanding on how to deal with epidemic and pandemic outbreaks, as well as understand these diseases as they come along. It may seem that this is something that is difficult to deal with at the present time, but when scientists can study patients that have contracted the disease and those who have recovered from it, then we will have a better understanding of the virus and its mechanism. This research, as any type of research, takes time and requires plenty of unsuccessful experiments to find the ones that work.

Seanasol Research is committed in taking what we learn on Earth and applying it to habitats on the Moon or Mars. We have given our support to international space advocacy organisations and we are supporting a call for a campaign for bringing support to settlements outside of Earth. Here we hope to introduce the importance of health research and health policies, in order to protect our survival on these futuristic settlements.

At Seanasol Research we believe that times like these show us ways to expand our collaboration network and give us an opportunity to join initiatives outside our immediate industry. In the future, we will be extending our support to health science graduates in the UK and Early Career Researchers whose research covers the emergence, transmission and control of pathogens and diseases.

Dr Emmanuel G Escobar Chairman at Seanasol Research