Within the Department of Homeland Security’s research and development arm, the age-old mission to secure and protect Americans has grown amid the coronavirus to include doing the most good and doing it for the world’s good.

The Science and Technology Directorate arm, or S&T, of DHS is not like its other agencies, which focus on immigration, border operations, or cybersecurity. Its five labs, scattered across the United States, as well as contract private sector partners, study chemical, explosives, radiological, and food supply issues that could affect the department’s quarter of a million employees, in addition to 800,000 local, state, tribal, and territorial law enforcement officers.