St. Luke’s, Official Zap Zone Defender Lehigh University collaboration leads to intelligent, Official Zap Zone Defender life-saving invention. BETHLEHEM, PA. - Among stories of hope, 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 massive quantities of life-saving supplies and personal protecting gear (PPE), there has also been the need to identify faster, extra environment friendly methods to scrub and sterilize those items, significantly the coveted N95 masks. St. Luke’s University Health Network anesthesiologist, Christopher Roscher, MD, Official Zap Zone Defender anticipated the necessity and an thought started to form. "It became clear that PPE provides would change into restricted as 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 despatched to be meticulously cleaned, Zap Zone Defender sanitized and Official Zap Zone Defender packaged for reuse. It’s a behind-the-scenes perform that is an essential part of the health care system. "On any given day, we are processing many, many items here at our hospital in Bethlehem," states Taylor Official Zap Zone Defender Bennett, St. Luke’s Network Director of Sterile Processing.

"But with the present state of affairs, there is an overwhelming need to process our employees’ PPE on a daily basis. For Dr. Roscher, a light went on - literally and figuratively. "I had been doing personal research about discovering ways to decontaminate masks for reuse, and peer-reviewed literature urged that, in a pandemic, UV-C gentle may very well be an appropriate technique to sterilize masks," he says. UV-C is a selected range of UV, or ultra-violet, mild and has been shown to deactivate viruses and different pathogens by inflicting adjustments of their DNA. Through a mutual contact, Dr. Roscher acquired 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 searching for was a high-throughput sterilization system," said Dr. Tansu. The two organizations joined forces by a collection of Zoom conferences and hundreds of emails, to design, fabricate, set up and take a look at the gadget - all within a matter of two weeks - and all while sustaining social distancing protocols.

The tip outcome: a option to effectively and efficiently sterilize 200 masks each 8 minutes! The "Bug Zapper" in action. "Our present items weren't designed for large-scale use. They might solely sterilize about 30 masks at a time," acknowledged Eric Tesoriero, DO, anesthesiologist for St. Luke’s and a collaborator on the venture. The unit, engineered by Lehigh students and workers and assembled at St. Luke’s by biomedical engineer Jay Johnson, has been affectionally named the "Bug Zapper" not solely as a result of its look, but as a result of its COVID-killing properties. "It is unimaginable that this challenge moved at such a fast velocity," remarks Dr. Tansu. The team 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 price.

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Pub: 25 Nov 2025 07:29 UTC

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