St. Luke’s, Lehigh University collaboration leads to intelligent, life-saving invention. BETHLEHEM, PA. - Among stories of hope, generosity and togetherness, the COVID-19 pandemic has additionally given rise to an incredible feat of ingenuity - the invention of the "Bug Zapper" to sterilize masks. As hospitals and other entrance-line organizations jumped to safe large quantities of life-saving supplies and Zap Zone Defender private protective gear (PPE), there has also been the need to determine faster, extra environment friendly methods to wash and ZapZone Defender sterilize those items, notably the coveted N95 masks. St. Luke’s University Health Network anesthesiologist, Christopher Roscher, MD, anticipated the need and an concept started to type. "It grew to become clear that PPE supplies would become limited as the virus progressed," he says. The St. Luke’s Sterile Processing Department, or SPD, ZapZone Defender is the place where all surgical and medical instruments are sent to be meticulously cleaned, sanitized and ZapZone Defender packaged for reuse. It’s a behind-the-scenes perform that is an essential part of the health care system. "On any given day, we're processing many, many items right here at our hospital in Bethlehem," states Taylor Bennett, ZapZone Defender St. Luke’s Network Director of Sterile Processing.

"But with the present scenario, there is an overwhelming need to process our employees’ PPE on a daily basis. For Dr. Roscher, a gentle went on - actually and figuratively. "I had been doing non-public analysis about finding methods to decontaminate masks for reuse, and peer-reviewed literature steered that, in a pandemic, ZapZone Defender UV-C light might be a suitable strategy to sterilize masks," he says. UV-C is a selected vary of UV, or extremely-violet, mild and has been shown to deactivate viruses and other pathogens by causing modifications of their DNA. Through a mutual contact, Dr. Roscher received in touch 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 excessive-throughput sterilization system," stated Dr. Tansu. The 2 organizations joined forces by way of a sequence of Zoom conferences and a whole bunch of emails, to design, fabricate, set up and check the device - all within a matter of two weeks - and all whereas sustaining social distancing protocols.

The tip outcome: a strategovercome something - particularly when working collectively for an excellent cause. Afterall, Zap Zone Defender because the famous philosopher Plato understood thousands 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-profit community of greater 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 space contains eleven counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Zap Zone Defender System Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey.