STTR Phase I: Development and Commercialization of the SafeLight Family of Antimicrobial Materials for Combatting the COVID-19 Pandemic and Hospital Acquired Infections

小企业技术转让第一阶段项目的更广泛影响是开发新的抗菌材料，以减少有害细菌和病毒在各种环境中的传播，特别是用于对抗SARS-CoV-2的自我消毒个人防护设备，以抗击新冠肺炎大流行。虽然这些抗菌材料主要用于医院，但也会影响生物防御；军事设施；食品加工、包装和服务行业；废水处理设施；日托和长期护理设施；甚至个人家庭。除了目前的大流行，这项技术还可以应对医院感染，据估计，医院感染每年会增加300-450亿美元的医疗成本；以及食品服务行业，在美国，仅食源性诺沃克病毒感染就造成了约58亿美元的经济损失。拟议中的技术为当前和未来的新冠肺炎挑战提供了显著的好处。拟议的项目将开发基于光动力灭活的光激活表面消毒材料，这种材料会产生单线态氧-一种高度活性但对环境无害的物种-对微生物造成非特异性损害，使其失去活性。技术挑战是：1)开发能够在光照下产生单线态氧，但在制造过程的高温下保持稳定的化学物种，为此，我们将从一类已知的化合物开始；2)开发一种新开发的光反应化合物的生产方法，并将其嵌入相关材料中，特别是用于个人防护设备的制造；以及3)对杀毒(针对冠状病毒)、抗菌、抗真菌和杀孢子虫用途的工艺效率进行评估。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is the development of new antimicrobial materials to reduce the spread of harmful bacteria and viruses in a variety of settings, particularly for self-disinfecting personal protection equipment against SARS-CoV-2 to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. While primarily intended for use in hospitals, these antimicrobial materials can also impact bio-defense; military facilities; food processing, packaging, and service industries; wastewater treatment facilities; daycare and long-term care facilities; and even personal households. Beyond the current pandemic, this technology can address hospital-acquired infections, which add an estimated $30-45 billion to health care costs every year; and the food service industry, where norovirus foodborne infections alone account for an economic loss of about $5.8 B annually in the United States. The proposed technology offers significant benefit for the current COVID-19 challenge and beyond. The proposed project will develop light-activated surface-disinfecting materials based on photodynamic inactivation that generates singlet oxygen – a highly reactive yet environmentally benign species – to cause non-specific damage to microbes, rendering them inactive. The technical challenges are: 1) the development of chemical species capable of producing singlet oxygen upon exposure to light, but stable at the high temperatures of manufacturing processes, for which we will start with a known class of compounds; 2) the development of a method for the production and embedding of the newly-developed photoreactive compounds within relevant materials, particularly for the manufacture of personal protection equipment; and 3) evaluation of process efficacy for virucidal (against coronaviruses), antibacterial, antimycotic and sporicidal use.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.