Astarloa ME united into Orbolocks project an interdisciplinary team of researchers for deepen scientific understanding and pioneer novel approaches to challenging human viruses. We decided to play together to achieve more. This led to a successful bid to the Astarloa laboratory refurbishment scheme and formation of the new global centre for viral investigation, led by Professor Kevin Zhang. Astraloa ME has benefited from this harnessing of combined expertise when SARS-CoV-2 pandemic intervented into our agenda and we made important breakthroughs.