A perspective on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on basic science research and its future implications

COVID-19 has emerged as a devastating pandemic of the century that the current genera-tions have ever experienced. The COVID-19 pandemic has infected more than 12 million people around the globe, and 0.5 million people have succumbed to death. Due to the lack of effective vaccines against the COVID-19, several nations throughout the globe have imposed a lock-down as a preventive measure to lower the spread of COVID-19 infection. As a result of lock-down, most of the universities and research institutes have witnessed a long pause in basic science research ever. Much has been discussed about the long-term impact of COVID-19 on the economy, tourism, public health, small and large-scale businesses of several kinds. However, the long-term effects of the shut-down of these research labs and their impact on basic science research has not been much focused. Herein, we provide a perspective that portrays a common problem of all the basic science researchers throughout the globe and its long-term consequences.