Bug Zapper Kills COVID-19 Virus

St. Luke’s, Lehigh University collaboration leads to intelligent, life-saving invention. BETHLEHEM, PA. - Among tales of hope, mosquito control device generosity and togetherness, the COVID-19 pandemic has additionally given rise to an unimaginable feat of ingenuity - the invention of the "Bug Zapper" to sterilize masks. As hospitals and different entrance-line organizations jumped to secure large portions of life-saving supplies and private protective gear (PPE), there has additionally been the necessity to establish faster, extra efficient ways to clean and sterilize these objects, particularly the coveted N95 masks. St. Luke’s University Health Network anesthesiologist, Christopher Roscher, MD, anticipated the necessity and an concept began to type. "It turned clear that PPE supplies would turn out to be limited as the virus progressed," he says. The St. Luke’s Sterile Processing Department, or SPD, is the place where all surgical and medical instruments are sent to be meticulously cleaned, sanitized and packaged for reuse. It’s a behind-the-scenes perform that is a vital a part of the well being care system. "On any given day, we're processing many, many items here at our hospital in Bethlehem," states Taylor Bennett, St. Luke’s Network Director of Sterile Processing.



"But with the present state of affairs, there's an overwhelming have to course of our employees’ PPE every day. For Dr. Roscher, a mild went on - literally and figuratively. "I had been doing personal analysis about finding methods to decontaminate masks for reuse, and peer-reviewed literature steered that, in a pandemic, UV-C mild could possibly be an appropriate strategy to sterilize masks," he says. UV-C is a particular vary of UV, or ultra-violet, gentle and has been shown to deactivate viruses and different pathogens by inflicting adjustments in their DNA. Through a mutual contact, Dr. Roscher acquired in contact with Nelson Tansu, PhD, Lehigh University’s Director and Endowed Chair of its Center for Photonics and Nanoelectronics (CPN). "What St. Luke’s was on the lookout for was a excessive-throughput sterilization system," mentioned Dr. Tansu. The two organizations joined forces via a sequence of Zoom meetings and hundreds of emails, to design, fabricate, install and take a look at the gadget - all within a matter of two weeks - and all while sustaining social distancing protocols.



The top end result: a method to successfully and effectively sterilize 200 masks every eight minutes! The "Bug Zapper" in motion. "Our present models were not designed for big-scale use. They might only sterilize about 30 masks at a time," said Eric Tesoriero, DO, anesthesiologist for St. Luke’s and a collaborator on the undertaking. The unit, engineered by Lehigh college students and employees and assembled at St. Luke’s by biomedical engineer Jay Johnson, has been affectionally named the "Bug Zapper" not solely as a consequence of its look, however resulting from its COVID-killing properties. "It is unimaginable that this undertaking moved at such a rapid pace," remarks Dr. Tansu. The group ranged from PhDs to MDs and even included an unexpected contributor - Axel Tansu, Dr. Tansu’s adolescent son. In truth, it was Axel’s contribution that allowed the unit to have such a high-throughput fee. "Our authentic design was cylindrical in form, to make sure even exposure of the light on all surfaces," explains Dr. Tansu.



"Axel came to me and stated, ‘Dad, what about an octagon? ’ And positive enough, he was proper. A patent to guard the team’s mental design has been filed. And a celebration for the collaborators to satisfy, in-particular person, will likely be deliberate as soon as it's protected to do so. Until then, the Bug Zapper can be exhausting at work, serving to to protect the frontline employees at St. Luke’s and past. This, like so many different stories, affords a ray of hope in the course of the pandemic - showcasing that the human mind and spirit can overcome something - particularly when working together for an incredible trigger. Afterall, because the famous philosopher Plato understood thousands of years in the past, necessity is the mother of invention. Founded in 1872, St. Luke's University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-revenue network of greater than 15,000 employees providing companies at 11 hospitals and 300 outpatient websites. With annual net revenue greater than $2 billion, the Network’s service space consists of 11 counties: mosquito control device Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.