Let There Be Germicidal Light: This $500 Fixture Could Stop the Next Pandemic, from Complex Systems

Vivian Balenkei: the special thing about UVC is it is absorbed by the DNA and RNA of pathogens as well as by essentially all proteins and this is very important because the fact that it's so heavily absorbed by proteins is a thing that makes it much safer than other germicidal UV wavelengths. So essentially a pathogen or any microorganism, anything without significant protections like humans and animals is going to be inactivated. So it's still in the air, but it can no longer replicate. And this works extremely fast. So, it's essentially like having an extremely strong air purifier running in a space except instead of maybe giving you an extra air change or two in your space, you can get the equivalent of 30 to 50.

Vivian Balenkei: we have some really encouraging results on tuberculosis specifically. There's a trial going on in South Africa that already has preliminary results and there they're seeing 90% transmission suppression in these in these TB wards. Uh this is an animal study. So the way it's set up is that there's guinea pigs which are exposed to the humans only through the air and they're monitoring what percent of the guinea pigs get tuberculosis. Um but tuberculosis is actually not very sensitive to Far UVC at all. It's relatively resistant. Um and I would say it's about maybe 10 times more resistant than your typical respiratory virus like flu or coronavirus.

Vivian Balenkei: the pandemic prevention case is by far the most exciting element here... the more contagious something is the more surface area there is to keep it from getting as bad as it could get. In fact one of the earlier use cases for traditional Far UVC which uses a different more dangerous wavelength as the 254 nanometer wavelength that was used to control measles and measles is just absurdly contagious... So UVC was able to successfully control measles outbreaks and I think that makes me really optimistic that a relatively low level of coverage in key areas... is where we can do pandemic suppression for relatively low cost.