RAPID: On-mask Chemical Modulation of Respiratory Droplets

非技术摘要：传染性呼吸道疾病的传播，如流感、非典、中东呼吸综合征和新冠肺炎，通常始于携带病毒粒子的呼吸道飞沫，由感染者在咳嗽或打喷嚏时释放出来。大多数水滴最终沉积在门把手、桌面、按钮、扶手和触摸屏等各种表面上，使它们成为潜在的传染性物体。要发生感染，这些病毒粒子必须在被另一个人感染时保持活跃，通常是通过手直接接触，然后转移到嘴、鼻子和眼睛。还可以通过在源头附近吸入病毒，将携带病毒的液滴和细胞核直接输送到呼吸道。因此，为了减缓甚至防止病毒的传播，最好是大大减少刚刚释放的呼吸道飞沫中的病毒粒子的数量和活性。这项快速奖由材料研究部固体和材料化学计划支持，探索通过医用口罩的呼吸液液滴中灭活病毒粒子的化学调制策略。这可以减少活跃的病毒粒子的数量，而这些病毒粒子正是传播途径的源头，即咳嗽。该项目还有助于推动物理科学和工程研究人员的努力，以研究问题，开发新的假说，创造以用户为中心的解决方案，并教育公众，解决与传染性呼吸道疾病传播和传播相关的许多挑战。技术摘要：患者通常需要口罩来阻止和吸收大的呼吸液液滴，并改变那些较小的逃逸液滴的路线，以缩短他们前进的距离。人们希望开发一种即插即用的策略，在患者使用的一次性口罩中添加抗病毒功能。这个由材料研究部固体和材料化学计划支持的快速项目开发了这样一种面罩上的化学调制策略，其重点是改变逃逸的呼吸液滴的化学成分，以使病毒粒子失活。起始模型体系是一种以导电聚合物为基础的化学改性剂。这种聚合物掺入了已知会产生恶劣微环境以使病毒粒子失活的化学试剂。在呼气过程中，掺杂物可以很容易地溶解在温暖的呼吸液液滴中，但在吸入过程中，它们不会在进入的更冷和更干燥的气流中蒸发。这种口罩上的化学调制策略为普通医用口罩增加了化学消毒功能，以降低病毒粒子的生存能力。由于这种化学调控是在病毒传播的链事件的最开始就应用的，所以它对所有潜在的传播途径都是有效的。此外，通过这个奖项，生物/医学研究和物理科学/工程学之间建立了更紧密的联系，并有助于激发新的假设、问题和想法，以推动创新，以应对与传染性呼吸道疾病传播和传播相关的挑战。这一快速项目的重大努力是为了实现这一目标，以便物理科学界和工程界能够更好地了解、教育和准备与生物和医学研究人员合作创造解决方案，并与他们一起参与面向公众的教育推广活动。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。

NON-TECHNICAL ABSTRACT: Spread of infectious respiratory diseases, such as influenza, SARS, MERS, and COVID-19, usually starts from virion-laden respiratory droplets, which are released by an infected person during coughing or sneezing. Most of the droplets end up depositing on various surfaces such as doorknobs, tabletops, buttons, handrails, and touchscreens, turning them into potentially infectious objects. For infection to occur, these virions must remain active when they are picked up by another person, often through direct contact by hands, and then transferred to mouth, nose and eyes. Direct transport of virus-laden droplets and nuclei to the respiratory tract is also possible through inhaling within close proximity to the source. Therefore, to slow down or even prevent virus spread, it would be desirable to greatly reduce the number and activity of the virions in those just-released respiratory droplets. This RAPID award, which is supported by the Solid State and Materials Chemistry Program in the Division of Materials Research, explores chemical modulation strategies for deactivating virions in the respiratory fluid droplets passing through a medical mask. This can reduce the number of active virions at the very source of their spread pathways, the cough. The project also helps to seed an effort to rally researchers in physical sciences and engineering to study the problems, develop new hypotheses, create user-centered solutions and educate the general public, to address the many challenges associated with the transmission and spread of infectious respiratory diseases.TECHNICAL ABSTRACT: Facial masks are often required for patients to block and absorb large respiratory fluid droplets, and to reroute those smaller escaping droplets to reduce their forward travelling distance. It would be desirable to develop drop-in strategies to add anti-viral functions to the disposable masks used by patients. This RAPID project, which is supported by the Solid State and Materials Chemistry Program in the Division of Materials Research, develops such an on-mask, chemical modulation strategy that focuses on altering the chemical composition of the escaped respiratory droplets to deactivate virions. The starting model system is a chemical modifier based on a conducting polymer. The polymer is doped with chemical agents that are known to generate harsh micro-environment to deactivate virions. The dopants can readily dissolve in warm respiratory fluid droplets during exhalation, but they do not vaporize in the incoming stream of colder and drier air during inhalation. Such an on-mask chemical modulation strategy adds chemical sanitization function to common medical masks for reducing the viability of virions. Since this drop-in chemical modulation is applied at the very beginning of the chain events of virus transmission, it is effective for all potential transmission pathways. Additionally, through this award stronger connections between biological/medical research and physical sciences/engineering are established and serve to inspire new hypotheses, questions and ideas that drive innovations to address the challenges associated with the transmission and spread of infectious respiratory diseases. A significant effort of this RAPID project is used to achieve this goal, so that the physical sciences and engineering communities can be better informed, educated and prepared to work with biological and medical researchers to create solutions, and join them in the educational outreach activities for the general public.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.