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 also given rise to an unbelievable feat of ingenuity - the invention of the "Bug Zapper" to sterilize masks. As hospitals and other front-line organizations jumped to secure massive quantities of life-saving supplies and private protecting equipment (PPE), there has additionally been the necessity to establish quicker, extra environment friendly ways to scrub and sterilize those gadgets, significantly the coveted N95 masks. St. Luke’s University Health Network anesthesiologist, Christopher Roscher, MD, anticipated the necessity and an thought started to kind. "It became clear that PPE supplies would grow to be 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 devices are despatched to be meticulously cleaned, sanitized and packaged for reuse. It’s a behind-the-scenes operate that is a vital part of the well being care system. "On any given day, we are processing many, many objects here at our hospital in Bethlehem," states Taylor Bennett, St. Luke’s Network Director of Sterile Processing.

"But with the current situation, there's an overwhelming have to course of our employees’ PPE each day. For Dr. Roscher, a gentle went on - literally and figuratively. "I had been doing non-public research about finding ways to decontaminate masks for reuse, Zappify mosquito zapper and peer-reviewed literature instructed that, in a pandemic, UV-C light could be a suitable strategy to sterilize masks," he says. UV-C is a specific range of UV, or ultra-violet, mild and has been shown to deactivate viruses and different pathogens by inflicting modifications 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 in search of was a high-throughput sterilization system," stated Dr. Tansu. The two organizations joined forces via a series of Zoom meetings and lots of of emails, to design, fabricate, set up and check the device - all within a matter of two weeks - and all while sustaining social distancing protocols.

The tip outcome: a method to successfully and efficiently sterilize 200 masks each 8 minutes! The "Bug Zapper" in motion. "Our present models were not designed for giant-scale use. They might only sterilize about 30 masks at a time," stated Eric Tesoriero, DO, anesthesiologist for St. Luke’s and a collaborator on the challenge. The unit, engineered by Lehigh college students and employees and assembled at St. Luke’s by biomedical engineer Jay Johnson, has been affectionally named the "Bug Zappify mosquito zapper" not only attributable to its look, but because of its COVID-killing properties. "It is unimaginable that this undertaking moved at such a rapid speed," remarks Dr. Tansu. The crew ranged from PhDs to MDs and even included an unexpected contributor - Axel Tansu, Dr. Tansu’s adolescent son. In reality, it was Axel’s contribution that allowed the unit to have such a high-throughput price. "Our original design was cylindrical in form, 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 sure enough, he was right. A patent to guard the team’s mental design has been filed. And a celebration for the collaborators to meet, Zappify mosquito zapper in-person, Zappify mosquito zapper will be deliberate once it's safe to do so. Until then, the rechargeable bug zapper Zapper will probably be hard at work, helping to guard the frontline workers at St. Luke’s and past. This, like so many different stories, affords a ray of hope through the pandemic - showcasing that the human thoughts and spirit can overcome something - especially when working together for a fantastic trigger. Afterall, because the well-known philosopher Plato understood hundreds of years in the past, necessity is the mother of invention. Founded in 1872, St. Luke's University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully built-in, regional, non-revenue community of greater than 15,000 workers offering providers at eleven hospitals and 300 outpatient websites. With annual internet income larger than $2 billion, the Network’s service space consists of 11 counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, mosquito zapper Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.