Investigation of the removal and dispersal of infectious agents in dental clinics

去看牙医是一种常见的经历，每年大约有数百万次牙科手术。由于牙齿由人体中最坚硬的材料组成，其操作和治疗涉及使用高速和高功率的牙科仪器，包括钻头和超声波刮刀。这些器械是由高速气流气动驱动的，由于它们会产生热量(这会损害牙齿组织)，所以它们会用水喷射来冷却。快速旋转/振动表面附近流动的液体和空气的结合有可能产生大量的液滴和细颗粒(气溶胶)。健康方面的挑战是，云有可能包含从口腔表面移走并在房间内传播的传染性物质(病毒、细菌)。关于感染性物质的产生和传播的科学是复杂的，我们在理解上存在一些重大差距，特别是我们不知道分散的气雾云中有多少含有传染性物质。为了减少扩散风险，我们需要提高空气中清除和扩散的科学水平。这项跨学科的研究将工程师、计算科学家、牙医、设备制造商聚集在一起，共同回答许多领先的问题。通过风险评估/缓解，该项目的科学成果将转化为牙科诊所。这一富含科学知识的项目在工作方案中有一条产生影响的途径。这条途径是通过与临床科学家和社区牙医合作创建的，他们已经与专业机构建立了联系。

Going to the dentist is a common experience with about million dental procedures undertaken each year. Since the teeth consist of some of the hardest material in the human body, its manipulation and treatment involving using high speed and high powered dental instruments including drills and ultrasonic scalers. These instruments are driven pneumatically by high speed air flows and since they generate heat (which can damage dental tissue) they are cooled with water jets. The combination of moving liquids and air near rapidly rotating/vibrating surfaces has the potential to generate large clouds of droplets and fine particles (aerosols). The health care challenge is that cloud has the potential to contain infectious agents (viruses, bacteria) removed from surfaces of the mouth and spread within a room. The science of infectious agents being created and spread is complex and there are some major gaps missing in our understanding, particularly we do not know how much of the dispersed aerosol cloud contains infectious material. In order to reduce the spreading risk, we need to improve the science of removal and dispersal in the air. This interdisciplinary study brings engineers, computational scientists, dentists, equipment manufacturers to interface together to answer many of the leading questions. The scientific outcome of the project will be translated to dental clinics through evaluation/ mitigation of the risk. This science-rich project has a pathway to impact embedded within the work programme. The pathway is created by working with clinical scientists and community dentists, who have established links to professional bodies.