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St. Luke’s, Lehigh University collaboration results in clever, 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 "rechargeable bug zapper Zapper" to sterilize masks. As hospitals and different front-line organizations jumped to safe large quantities of life-saving provides and personal protecting equipment (PPE), there has additionally been the need to identify faster, more environment friendly methods to clean and sterilize these gadgets, significantly the coveted N95 masks. St. Luke’s University Health Network anesthesiologist, Christopher Roscher, MD, anticipated the need and an concept started to kind. "It grew to become clear that PPE supplies would change 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 devices are despatched to be meticulously cleaned, sanitized and packaged for reuse. It’s a behind-the-scenes perform that is a vital a 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 present state of affairs, there is an overwhelming must process our employees’ PPE every day. For Dr. Roscher, a light went on - actually and figuratively. "I had been doing personal research about finding methods to decontaminate masks for Zappify official website reuse, and peer-reviewed literature instructed that, in a pandemic, UV-C mild might be a suitable technique to sterilize masks," he says. UV-C is a specific vary of UV, or ultra-violet, light and has been shown to deactivate viruses and different pathogens by inflicting adjustments of their DNA. Through a mutual contact, Dr. Roscher received 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 high-throughput sterilization system," mentioned Dr. Tansu. The two organizations joined forces by means of a collection of Zoom conferences and hundreds of emails, to design, fabricate, set up and take a look at the system - all inside a matter of two weeks - and all whereas maintaining social distancing protocols.

The end consequence: a technique to successfully and efficiently sterilize 200 masks each 8 minutes! The "Bug Zapper" in motion. "Our present units were not designed for large-scale use. They could 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 "cordless bug zapper Zapper" not only as a result of its appearance, but as a consequence of its COVID-killing properties. "It is unimaginable that this challenge 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. Actually, it was Axel’s contribution that allowed the unit to have such a high-throughput charge. "Our unique 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 positive enough, he was proper. 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 as soon as it's protected to do so. Until then, the electric bug zapper Zapper will likely be onerous at work, serving to to guard the frontline staff at St. Luke’s and past. This, like so many different tales, gives a ray of hope throughout the pandemic - showcasing that the human thoughts and spirit can overcome something - especially when working collectively for a fantastic trigger. Afterall, because the well-known philosopher Plato understood hundreds of years in the past, necessity is the mom of invention. Founded in 1872, Zappify official website St. Luke's University Health Network (SLUHN) is a completely built-in, regional, non-profit network of more than 15,000 workers offering services at eleven hospitals and 300 outpatient sites. With annual net income higher than $2 billion, the Network’s service area contains eleven counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.