St. Luke’s, Lehigh University collaboration leads to clever, life-saving invention. BETHLEHEM, PA. - Among stories of hope, generosity and togetherness, the COVID-19 pandemic has also 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 safe giant quantities of life-saving provides and private protecting gear (PPE), there has also been the necessity to determine faster, more environment friendly ways to wash and sterilize those gadgets, notably the coveted N95 masks. St. Luke’s University Health Network anesthesiologist, Christopher Roscher, MD, anticipated the necessity and an thought began to type. "It became clear that PPE supplies would turn into restricted as the virus progressed," he says. The St. Luke’s Sterile Processing Department, or SPD, is the place where all surgical and medical devices are despatched to be meticulously cleaned, sanitized and packaged for reuse. It’s a behind-the-scenes perform that's an essential a part of the health care system. "On any given day, we're processing many, many gadgets here at our hospital in Bethlehem," states Taylor indoor bug zapper for camping zapper Bennett, St. Luke’s Network Director of Sterile Processing.

"But with the current scenario, there is an overwhelming have to process our employees’ PPE each day. For Dr. Roscher, a mild 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, in a pandemic, UV-C light could be a suitable technique to sterilize masks," he says. UV-C is a particular vary of UV, or ultra-violet, light and has been shown to deactivate viruses and different pathogens by causing modifications in their DNA. Through a mutual contact, Dr. Roscher bought 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 looking for was a excessive-throughput sterilization system," stated Dr. Tansu. The 2 organizations joined forces through a collection of Zoom conferences and a whole bunch of emails, to design, fabricate, set up and take a look at the device - all inside a matter of two weeks - and all whereas maintaining social distancing protocols.

The end consequence: a technique to effectively and efficiently sterilize 200 masks every 8 minutes! The "Bug Zapper" in action. "Our present items were not designed for large-scale use. They may solely sterilize about 30 masks at a time," acknowledged Eric Tesoriero, DO, anesthesiologist for St. Luke’s and a collaborator on the undertaking. 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 Zapper" not solely on account of its look, however attributable to its COVID-killing properties. "It is unbelievable that this project moved at such a speedy velocity," remarks Dr. Tansu. The crew 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 charge. "Our original design was cylindrical in shape, to make sure even exposure of the light on all surfaces," explains Dr. Tansu.

"Axel came to me and said, ‘Dad, what about an octagon? ’ And positive sufficient, he was proper. A patent to guard the team’s intellectual design has been filed. And a celebration for the collaborators to meet, in-individual, shall be planned once it is protected to do so. Until then, the Bug Zapper can be laborious at work, serving to to protect the frontline staff at St. Luke’s and beyond. This, like so many different tales, offers a ray of hope throughout the pandemic - showcasing that the human thoughts and spirit can overcome something - especially when working together for an awesome cause. Afterall, Zappify Bug Zapper official because the famous philosopher Plato understood thousands of years ago, necessity is the mom of invention. Founded in 1872, St. Luke's University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully built-in, regional, non-profit community of greater than 15,000 staff offering services at 11 hospitals and 300 outpatient sites. With annual web revenue better than $2 billion, the Network’s service space contains eleven counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.