a combat photographer in the S-2 Section of the U.S Army’s 31st Combat Engineer Battalion documented the scenes and events around him as his unit pushed from the French Alsace into Nazi Germany Clover donated many of his film negatives to the U.S National Archives—where I recently visited digitizing most of these prints below for the first time Clover’s striking photographs capture the lives of war-weary civilians as well as soldiers—sometimes in a playful light—while still depicting the ugly reality of war A photo previously included in this story has been removed because it did not meet The Atlantic's editorial standards To receive an email notification every time new photo stories are published, sign up here We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com A collection of winning and honored images from this year’s nature-photo competition A collection of amazing recent images made with the Hubble Space Telescope Mourners of Pope Francis gathered at the Vatican scenes from the the second weekend of Coachella 2025 and landscapes of the Earth’s arctic and subarctic regions EVONIK is spending €25m (US$27.1m) on the first stage of a long-term project to increase contract manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and advanced intermediates in Germany The company is expanding facilities in Dossenheim and Hanau to help to meet growing demand for contract manufacturing in Europe Senior VP of Evonik’s Health Care business line the coronavirus crisis has increased the need for pharmaceutical companies to have European-based sites to support the production of life-saving drugs to enable reliable supply to regional markets will support customers looking for European sites for clinical and commercial production of their APIs and intermediates VP of the Exclusive Synthesis for the Health Care business line at Evonik added that the expansion will further Evonik’s ability to support complex customer projects which are often associated with oncological The projects typically involve advanced technologies The multi-purpose Dossenheim facility includes three plants for APIs and intermediates has a range of capabilities including organometallic chemistry and can support both batch and continuous processing The Hanau multi-purpose site has multiple plants capable manufacturing advanced APIs and intermediates including those requiring organometallic chemistry Evonik did not disclose the future scheduled capacities of the sites The first stage of the expansion is to be complete by mid-2021 Article by Amanda Jasi UK launches vaccine taskforce to co-ordinate scaleup Covid-19 vaccine could be ready by year end, says AZ CEO BES appointed to fit out UK’s VMIC Attention turns to vaccine production following successful trials CureVac joins forces with Bayer to speed up supply of Covid-19 vaccine Process Engineer - Safety Specialist Process Engineering Lead Process Engineer - Upstream Process Engineer - Lower Carbon A conversation with the experts: watch the recordings of our previous webinars and sign-up to attend future online webcasts You do not have to be a chemical engineer to join IChemE Our global membership community includes people from a range of disciplines who have an interest in and/or relevant experience in chemical engineering View a wider selection of the archive from within the Magazine section of this site We offer readers a flexible range of subscription options and you are certain to find one that suits your needs Process Engineer - Safety Specialist view job Process Engineering Lead view job Process Engineer - Upstream view job Process Engineer - Lower Carbon view job Quality Engineer view job Process Control and Simulation Lead view job Process Controls Engineer view job Process Controls Engineer - Alarm Management view job © 2025 Institution of Chemical Engineers Site by Technical Labs As Moderna and the partnership of Pfizer and BioNTech struggle to respond to huge demand for their messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccines suppliers of the specialty lipids needed to deliver the vaccines are scrambling to keep up Lipids are an unsung component in the two mRNA-based shots the only vaccines to be approved so far in the US and can trigger an unwanted immune reaction To get the genetic material to its target cells vaccine developers combine it with a mixture of several sophisticated lipids to form lipid nanoparticles Very few companies in the world supply these custom lipids in significant quantities and to the standards needed for vaccine production announced that it will “significantly accelerate the supply of urgently needed lipids” ACS’s Basic Package keeps you connected with C&EN and ACS $80 Regular Members & Society Affiliates ACS’s Standard Package lets you stay up to date with C&EN ACS’s Premium Package gives you full access to C&EN and everything the ACS Community has to offer As Moderna and the partnership of Pfizer and BioNTech struggle to respond to huge demand for their messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccines announced that it will “significantly accelerate the supply of urgently needed lipids” for BioNTech to use in producing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine Merck said it has been “working hard” in recent weeks to expand its lipid capacity by further improving production technologies and implementing new process steps It expects to increase lipid shipments toward the end of 2021 Although Pfizer is so far the main producer of the partners’ vaccine BioNTech is starting to make it in a facility in Marburg Evonik Industries said it will begin lipid production at two sites in Germany also as part of a partnership with BioNTech a newcomer to large-scale specialty lipid manufacturing expects to be making commercial quantities as early as the second half of 2021 Other companies are likewise rapidly scaling up. Croda, a British specialty chemical firm, is increasing production in Alabama at its subsidiary Avanti Polar Lipids to supply Pfizer And the German pharmaceutical services firm CordenPharma has been investing in Switzerland to supply lipids for Moderna’s vaccine under an agreement announced in May mRNA vaccine producers use a package of 4 lipids to formulate their LNPs: An ionizable cationic lipid that encapsulates the negatively charged mRNA; a PEGylated lipid that helps control particle life and size; distearoylphosphatidylcholine (DSPC) a phospholipid that helps form the structure of the LNP; and cholesterol The cationic lipid is the most important of the four global director of CordenPharma’s peptides says the synthesis requires about 10 steps and several product isolations A complete manufacturing campaign is measured in months To meet soaring demand for this and the other lipids CordenPharma executives realized they needed to supplement their primary lipids site in Switzerland and start production at a facility in Chenôve The firm also transferred lipid purification to its facility in Boulder which is home to its largest purification column And it embarked on process-optimization projects at each site the company firmed up its raw material supply chain ensuring it has dual sourcing for all key raw materials And it enlisted the help of a sister company CordenPharma went through multiple waves of hiring and expansion as Moderna’s lipid requirements increased since last May These projects are just now beginning to bear fruit “We started this month to kick off the next level that’s expected by Moderna,” Giraud says CordenPharma has increased its lipid production for Moderna more than 50-fold and more increases are possible depending on the vaccine firm’s future needs Although Evonik is new to lipid production it has been formulating LNPs since 2016 when it acquired the Canadian firm Transferra Nanosciences It can produce encapsulated mRNA there for the early phases of clinical testing and make commercial quantities at its site in Birmingham Last year the company entered the cholesterol business with the purchase of Wilshire Technologies vice president of R&D for Evonik’s health-care business Evonik will add production at plants in Hanau and Dossenheim for the two most important lipids needed to make LNPs: cationic and PEGylated lipids Both Giraud and Randl say the efforts by their companies to meet the lipid needs of their vaccine customers have been unprecedented Giraud says CordenPharma brought together a team of more than 50 employees across multiple locations “We really have now a good concept to meet demand from Moderna,” he says And CordenPharma is prepared to supply other COVID-19 vaccine developers that require lipid-based delivery systems Randl sees his firm’s investment extending beyond vaccines to serve developers of next-generation mRNA-based medicines such as cancer immunotherapies “We really believe this mRNA trend is there to last,” he says This article has been sent to the following recipient: Sign up for C&EN's must-read weekly newsletter Copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society Evonik Industries says it will build a lipid production facility at its Tippecanoe manufacturing complex in Lafayette The $220 million project will be financed with $150 million from the US government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority The German company’s pharmaceutical services division already supplies lipids for use in formulating messenger RNA (mRNA) therapies and others from its facilities in Dossenheim and Hanau The plant in Indiana will exceed the combined capacities of the German facilities Demand for lipids has soared in recent years with the development of mRNA vaccines Naked mRNA quickly degrades in the body and can trigger an unwanted immune reaction The German company’s pharmaceutical services division already supplies lipids for use in formulating messenger RNA (mRNA) therapies, including COVID-19 vaccines, to Pfizer, BioNTech Demand for lipids has soared in recent years with the development of mRNA vaccines does have small-scale LNP production capacity at a plant in Vancouver that it got in 2016 when it purchased Transferra Nanosciences Evonik’s original interest in the lipid field predates the COVID-19 vaccines focusing broadly on the use of LNPs as delivery agents for a range of DNA and RNA-based therapies “The reason we got into this business was not because of vaccines it was because of cancer immunotherapy and personalized medicine,” Spencer says The company shifted its focus to producing lipid for vaccines during the pandemic and accelerated the business by scaling up the two German facilities notes that the market for lipids and LNPs is primed for growth given the number of RNA and DNA therapies in drug company pipelines and the emergence of protein replacement therapies Other US lipid producers include Croda, which purchased Avanti Polar Lipids and its plant in Alabama in 2020 CordenPharma supplies lipids to Moderna for its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine which the firm acquired from Eli Lilly and Company in 2009 The lipid operation is expected to open in 2025 and add over 80 jobs