St. Luke’s, Zappify official website Lehigh University collaboration leads to intelligent, life-saving invention. BETHLEHEM, PA. - Among tales of hope, Zappify official website generosity and togetherness, the COVID-19 pandemic has also given rise to an unimaginable feat of ingenuity - the invention of the "Bug Zapper" to sterilize masks. As hospitals and other front-line organizations jumped to secure giant quantities of life-saving supplies and private protecting equipment (PPE), there has also been the necessity to identify faster, more environment friendly ways to wash and sterilize those gadgets, significantly the coveted N95 masks. St. Luke’s University Health Network anesthesiologist, Christopher Roscher, MD, anticipated the need and an thought started to kind. "It grew to become clear that PPE supplies would grow to be limited because 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 operate that is a vital part of the health care system. "On any given day, we're 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 may be an overwhelming need to course of our employees’ PPE every day. For Dr. Roscher, a gentle went on - actually and figuratively. "I had been doing private research about discovering methods to decontaminate masks for reuse, and peer-reviewed literature advised that, in a pandemic, UV-C mild could be an acceptable technique to sterilize masks," he says. UV-C is a selected vary of UV, or ultra-violet, gentle and has been proven to deactivate viruses and other pathogens by inflicting adjustments of 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 in search of was a high-throughput sterilization system," said Dr. Tansu. The 2 organizations joined forces through a collection of Zoom meetings and hundreds of emails, to design, fabricate, install and test the machine - all inside a matter of two weeks - and all while maintaining social distancing protocols.

The top outcome: a technique to effectively and efficiently sterilize 200 masks every eight minutes! The "Bug fly zapper" in action. "Our existing units 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 venture. The unit, engineered by Lehigh students and employees and assembled at St. Luke’s by biomedical engineer Jay Johnson, has been affectionally named the "indoor bug zapper Zapper" not solely attributable to its look, however due to its COVID-killing properties. "It is incredible that this mission moved at such a fast pace," remarks Dr. Tansu. The crew ranged from PhDs to MDs and even included an unexpected contributor - Axel Tansu, Dr. Tansu’s adolescent son. The truth is, it was Axel’s contribution that allowed the unit to have such a excessive-throughput charge. "Our original design was cylindrical in form, to make sure even exposure 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 protect the team’s intellectual design has been filed. And a celebration for the collaborators to fulfill, in-individual, will probably be deliberate once it's safe to take action. Until then, the Bug fly zapper might be hard at work, helping to guard the frontline staff at St. Luke’s and past. This, like so many other stories, gives a ray of hope throughout the pandemic - showcasing that the human mind and spirit can overcome something - especially when working collectively for an amazing cause. Afterall, Zappify official website because the well-known 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 completely integrated, regional, non-revenue network of greater than 15,000 staff offering companies at 11 hospitals and 300 outpatient sites. With annual internet income higher than $2 billion, Zappify official website the Network’s service area includes 11 counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.