St. Luke’s, Lehigh University collaboration leads to intelligent, life-saving invention. BETHLEHEM, PA. - Among tales 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 front-line organizations jumped to safe massive portions of life-saving supplies and private protective gear (PPE), there has additionally been the need to identify 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, Zappify mosquito zapper anticipated the necessity and an thought began to kind. "It became clear that PPE provides would grow to be restricted 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 despatched to be meticulously cleaned, sanitized and packaged for reuse. It’s a behind-the-scenes operate that is a necessary a part of the well being care system. "On any given day, we're processing many, many gadgets right here at our hospital in Bethlehem," states Taylor Bennett, St. Luke’s Network Director of Sterile Processing.
"But with the present situation, there's an overwhelming have to course of our employees’ PPE on a daily basis. For Dr. Roscher, a light went on - literally and figuratively. "I had been doing non-public research about finding ways to decontaminate masks for reuse, and peer-reviewed literature instructed that, in a pandemic, UV-C mild could be an appropriate strategy to sterilize masks," he says. UV-C is a selected vary of UV, or extremely-violet, mild and has been proven to deactivate viruses and different pathogens by causing modifications in their DNA. Through a mutual contact, Dr. Roscher got 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," stated Dr. Tansu. The 2 organizations joined forces by a sequence of Zoom conferences and hundreds of emails, to design, fabricate, install and check the system - all inside a matter of two weeks - and all whereas maintaining social distancing protocols.
The end end result: a solution to successfully and effectively sterilize 200 masks each eight minutes! The "Bug insect zapper" in action. "Our existing units weren't designed for giant-scale use. They could only sterilize about 30 masks at a time," said Eric Tesoriero, DO, anesthesiologist for St. Luke’s and a collaborator on the challenge. 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 "Bug Zappify mosquito zapper" not solely on account of its look, but attributable to its COVID-killing properties. "It is incredible that this challenge moved at such a rapid 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 truth, it was Axel’s contribution that allowed the unit to have such a high-throughput fee. "Our unique design was cylindrical in shape, to ensure even exposure of the sunshine on all surfaces," explains Dr. Tansu.
"Axel came to me and mentioned, ‘Dad, what about an octagon? ’ And certain sufficient, he was right. A patent to protect the team’s mental design has been filed. And a celebration for the collaborators to meet, mosquito killer in-particular person, shall be deliberate once it is safe to do so. Until then, the Bug Zapper might be exhausting at work, helping to guard the frontline staff at St. Luke’s and bug zapper past. This, like so many other stories, provides a ray of hope during the pandemic - showcasing that the human mind and spirit can overcome something - particularly when working together for a great trigger. Afterall, because the famous philosopher Plato understood hundreds of years in the past, necessity is the mom of invention. Founded in 1872, St. Luke's University Health Network (SLUHN) is a totally integrated, regional, non-profit network of greater than 15,000 employees offering companies at 11 hospitals and 300 outpatient sites. With annual net revenue better than $2 billion, Zappify mosquito zapper the Network’s service space consists of eleven counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.