Resilient and agile engineering solutions to address societal challenges such as coronavirus pandemic Saurav Goel a, b, c, * , Sara Hawi b , Gaurav Goel a , Vijay Kumar Thakur c, d , Anupam Agrawal e , Clare Hoskins f , Oliver Pearce g , Tanvir Hussain h , Hari M. Upadhyaya a , Graham Cross i, j , Asa H. Barber a a School of Engineering, London South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, London, SE10AA, UK b School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing, Cranfield University, Bedford, MK43 0AL, UK c Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shiv Nadar University, Gautam Budh Nagar, 201314, India d Biorefining and Advanced Materials Research Center, Scotland's Rural College (SRUC), Kings Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JG, UK e Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA f Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G1 1RD, UK g Orthopaedic Department, Milton Keynes University Hospital, MK65 LD, UK h Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK i Adama Innovations Limited, Dublin 2, Ireland j CRANN Nanoscience Institute, School of Physics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland article info Article history: Received 1 May 2020 Received in revised form 17 May 2020 Accepted 19 May 2020 Available online 28 May 2020 Keywords: SARS CoV-2 Manufacturing Sensing Climate change Nanotechnology PPE abstract The world is witnessing tumultuous times as major economic powers including the US, UK, Russia, India, and most of Europe continue to be in a state of lockdown. The worst-hit sectors due to this lockdown are sales, production (manufacturing), transport (aerospace and automotive) and tourism. Lockdowns became necessary as a preventive measure to avoid the spread of the contagious and infectious “Coronavirus Disease 2019” (COVID-19). This newly identified disease is caused by a new strain of the virus being referred to as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus 2 (SARS CoV-2; formerly called 2019-nCoV). We review the current medical and manufacturing response to COVID-19, including advances in instrumentation, sensing, use of lasers, fumigation chambers and development of novel tools such as lab-on-the-chip using combinatorial additive and subtractive manufacturing techniques and use of molecular modelling and molecular docking in drug and vaccine discovery. We also offer perspectives on future considerations on climate change, outsourced versus indigenous manufacturing, automation, and antimicrobial resistance. Overall, this paper attempts to identify key areas where manufacturing can be employed to address societal challenges such as COVID-19. © 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction Coronaviruses (CoVs) belong to the family Coronaviridae which includes four genera: a, b, g and d as well as several subgenera and species [1]. SARS CoV-2 is a b-coronavirus with a single-stranded RNA genome of ~30 kb [2]. Recent topical research has revealed several new CoVs (three a-coronaviruses, three new b-coronavi- ruses, and one previously described a-coronavirus) from bats captured from Myanmar and future emergence of new diseases caused by these CoVs due to change of land use has been speculated [3]. Furthermore, newer mutations of the virus that originally spread from Wuhan were confirmed as deadlier in some countries compared to others, which has led to added confusion and concern [4]. SARS CoV-2 was first identified from the outbreak of respiratory illness cases in Wuhan City in the Hubei Province of China. Initial reports of the virus were made to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on December 31, 2019. This was followed by the WHO declaring COVID-19 as a global health emergency on January 30, 2020 due to rapid spreading, and a later pandemic declaration on March 11, 2020. The disease has quickly engulfed most of the world and has caused severe infection to populations across numerous countries as shown in Fig. 1 . * Corresponding author. E-mail address: GoeLs@Lsbu.ac.uk (S. Goel). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Today Chemistry journal homepage: www.journals.elsevier.com/materials-today-chemistry/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtchem.2020.100300 2468-5194/© 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Materials Today Chemistry 17 (2020) 100300