Skin safety testing to enable far-UV-C technologies for wide-spread inactivation of SARS-CoV-2

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UV light is known to inactivate SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also widely claimed that high energy UV light, called "far-UV-C", is 'safe for humans', although this claim is based predominantly on animal studies and limited studies in human volunteers. The UK is expected to begin employing far-UV-C in public spaces in 2021\. It is proposed here to _rapidly_ generate safety data showing whether or not far-UV-C causes the types of damage that full-spectrum UV light does (for example, sunburn, DNA damage, immunosuppression of the skin, and modifications to the skin microbiome, which is the natural flora that lives in healthy human skin). It is imperative that we understand the effects of far-UV-C on human skin to ensure it can be deployed to its full effectWe are proposing here to conduct the following far-UV-C research projects to investigate the efficacy and safety profile of this very promising technology:* DNA damage upon acute and chronic far-UV-C exposure* DNA damage to compromised skin (for example, wounded skin) upon far-UV-C exposure* Response of immune cells resident in the skin to far-UV-C (it is known that UV-B light elicits an immune response in skin, but the effect of far-UV-C has not been evaluated)* Evaluation of skin microbiome following acute and chronic exposure to far-UV-C. Far-UV-C irradiation may kill or modify the genetic material of the beneficial flora that colonise the skin by the same mechanism by which SARS-CoV-2 is inactivated* Computer simulation of far-UV-C penetration into skin guided by the data generated in the skin modelWe propose to conduct these experiments in our novel patent-protected _ex vivo_ skin model (TenSkin(tm)) which is the closest mimic available to human skin while still on the body.