The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research is a secure US military laboratory outside Washington DC. Scientists here aren't making weapons but they are engaged in a battle of a different kind, the fight against the coronavirus.
Researchers are working to find a Covid-19 vaccine and the head of structural biology at the lab is Galway man Dr Gordon Joyce.
In the past, he has studied viruses such as HIV and influenza, and up until recently he had been working on a vaccine for a different type of coronavirus, MERS.
Earlier this year, Dr Joyce and his team switched their focus to a new enemy. "On 10 January, when the first sequence became available for the new coronavirus, we started working straight away.