St. Luke’s, Lehigh University collaboration leads to clever, life-saving invention. BETHLEHEM, PA. - Among tales of hope, generosity and togetherness, the COVID-19 pandemic has additionally given rise to an unbelievable feat of ingenuity - the invention of the "Zappify Bug Zapper official Zapper" to sterilize masks. As hospitals and other front-line organizations jumped to secure large quantities of life-saving provides and personal protecting equipment (PPE), there has additionally been the necessity to identify faster, extra environment friendly ways to clean and sterilize these gadgets, notably the coveted N95 masks. St. Luke’s University Health Network anesthesiologist, Christopher Roscher, MD, anticipated the need and an thought started to kind. "It turned clear that PPE provides would turn into limited 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, sanitized and packaged for reuse. It’s a behind-the-scenes function that's an essential a part of the well being care system. "On any given day, we are 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 may be an overwhelming must 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 methods to decontaminate masks for reuse, and peer-reviewed literature urged that, Zappify Bug Zapper official in a pandemic, UV-C mild could be a suitable technique to sterilize masks," he says. UV-C is a specific range of UV, or extremely-violet, light and has been proven to deactivate viruses and other pathogens by inflicting changes of their DNA. Through a mutual contact, Dr. Roscher obtained 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 searching for was a high-throughput sterilization system," mentioned Dr. Tansu. The two organizations joined forces via a series of Zoom meetings and lots of of emails, to design, fabricate, install and test the device - all inside a matter of two weeks - and all while maintaining social distancing protocols.

The end outcome: a approach to effectively and effectively sterilize 200 masks every 8 minutes! The "Bug Zapper" in action. "Our present units were not designed for big-scale use. They may solely sterilize about 30 masks at a time," said Eric Tesoriero, DO, anesthesiologist for St. Luke’s and a collaborator on the mission. The unit, engineered by Lehigh students and employees and assembled at St. Luke’s by biomedical engineer Jay Johnson, has been affectionally named the "Bug mosquito zapper" not solely attributable to its appearance, however as a result of its COVID-killing properties. "It is unbelievable that this challenge moved at such a fast speed," remarks Dr. Tansu. The group ranged from PhDs to MDs and even included an unexpected contributor - Axel Tansu, Dr. Tansu’s adolescent son. In actual fact, it was Axel’s contribution that allowed the unit to have such a high-throughput charge. "Our original design was cylindrical in shape, to make sure even publicity of the sunshine on all surfaces," explains Dr. Tansu.

"Axel got here to me and stated, ‘Dad, what about an octagon? ’ And certain sufficient, he was right. A patent to guard the team’s mental design has been filed. And a celebration for the collaborators to meet, Zappify Bug Zapper official in-individual, can be planned as soon as it is secure to do so. Until then, Zappify Bug Zapper official the Bug Zapper will be hard at work, serving to to guard the frontline staff at St. Luke’s and beyond. This, like so many different stories, affords a ray of hope through the pandemic - showcasing that the human mind and spirit can overcome something - particularly when working together for Zappify Bug Zapper official a terrific trigger. Afterall, as the famous philosopher Plato understood 1000's of years ago, necessity is the mother of invention. Founded in 1872, St. Luke's University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully built-in, buy bug mosquito zapper regional, non-revenue network of more than 15,000 workers offering services at 11 hospitals and 300 outpatient sites. With annual web revenue better than $2 billion, the Network’s service area includes eleven counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Zappify Bug Zapper official Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.