At the start of 2020, the world began to face the hard-hitting reality of a viral pandemic: the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 disease. In this episode, we explore how scientific communities are learning to overcome the impacts of COVID-19, from efforts to investigating the complexity of the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins for research purposes to transformations in the world of digital business and a deeper understanding of interventions to prevent pandemics in future.