St. Luke’s, Lehigh University collaboration results in clever, life-saving invention. BETHLEHEM, PA. - Among tales of hope, generosity and togetherness, the COVID-19 pandemic has also given rise to an unimaginable feat of ingenuity - the invention of the "bug zapper for backyard indoor bug zapper" to sterilize masks. As hospitals and different entrance-line organizations jumped to safe large portions of life-saving provides and private protective tools (PPE), there has also been the necessity to establish faster, extra efficient methods to scrub and sterilize those gadgets, particularly the coveted N95 masks. St. Luke’s University Health Network anesthesiologist, Christopher Roscher, MD, anticipated the necessity and an concept started to kind. "It turned clear that PPE provides would become limited because the virus progressed," he says. The St. Luke’s Sterile Processing Department, or SPD, is the place the place all surgical and medical instruments are sent to be meticulously cleaned, sanitized and packaged for reuse. It’s a behind-the-scenes function that is a necessary a part of the well being care system. "On any given day, we are 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 must process our employees’ PPE every day. For Dr. Roscher, a light went on - literally and figuratively. "I had been doing non-public analysis about discovering methods to decontaminate masks for reuse, and peer-reviewed literature advised that, in a pandemic, UV-C gentle might be an appropriate strategy to sterilize masks," he says. UV-C is a specific vary of UV bug zapper, or ultra-violet, light and has been proven to deactivate viruses and other pathogens by causing modifications of their DNA. Through a mutual contact, Dr. Roscher bought in touch 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 through a series of Zoom meetings and lots of of emails, to design, fabricate, install and take a look at the system - all within a matter of two weeks - and all while maintaining social distancing protocols.
The end result: a solution to effectively and efficiently sterilize 200 masks every 8 minutes! The "Zappify Bug Zapper Zapper" in action. "Our existing units weren't designed for buy Zappify Bug Zapper giant-scale use. They could solely sterilize about 30 masks at a time," stated Eric Tesoriero, DO, anesthesiologist for St. Luke’s and a collaborator on the venture. The unit, engineered by Lehigh college students and workers and assembled at St. Luke’s by biomedical engineer Jay Johnson, has been affectionally named the "buy Zappify Bug Zapper Zapper" not only on account of its appearance, however attributable to its COVID-killing properties. "It is incredible that this undertaking moved at such a rapid velocity," remarks Dr. Tansu. The staff ranged from PhDs to MDs and even included an unexpected contributor - Axel Tansu, Dr. Tansu’s adolescent son. In fact, it was Axel’s contribution that allowed the unit to have such a high-throughput fee. "Our unique design was cylindrical in form, to ensure even publicity of the sunshine on all surfaces," explains Dr. Tansu.
"Axel got here to me and said, ‘Dad, what about an octagon? ’ And sure enough, he was right. A patent to protect the team’s mental design has been filed. And a celebration for the collaborators to satisfy, in-person, will likely be deliberate as soon as it's secure to do so. Until then, the indoor bug zapper Zapper might be laborious at work, serving to to protect the frontline staff at St. Luke’s and past. This, like so many different stories, offers a ray of hope in the course of the pandemic - showcasing that the human mind and spirit can overcome something - especially when working collectively for an excellent trigger. Afterall, as the famous philosopher Plato understood thousands of years ago, necessity is the mother of invention. Founded in 1872, St. Luke's University Health Network (SLUHN) is a completely built-in, regional, non-profit network of more than 15,000 staff offering services at eleven hospitals and 300 outpatient sites. With annual net revenue higher than $2 billion, the Network’s service area consists of eleven counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, buy Zappify Bug Zapper Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.