SEEKING NEW MEMBERS!
Apply here.
On-Site assistance
Description: This project was developed to help meet the coming surge in need for face masks at NY Presbyterian Hospital and CUIMC. We will provide a team of volunteers to assist in a mass effort to sterilize N95 masks. Briefly, caregivers in the hospital will place used masks in paper bags and deposit these at collection points. Our volunteers will assist with collecting them and bringing them to an on-site facility for virus inactivation via dry heat. The restored masks can then be reutilized in the clinic.
Manager: Ana Pinharanda
Members: Emmanuel Antwi-Adjei, Ren Wiscons, Eduardo Perez-Torres, Jaya Pradhan, Yevgeny Rakita and Pamela Graney
"At-Home" mask decontamination
Description: Develop a protocol using household appliances such as microwaves or steamers to decontaminate N95 masks. This method will provide a certain level of safe decontamination for people without access to sufficient masks, or institutional services for mask cleaning.
We will:
a) perform a comprehensive review of established literature as well as recent best-practice reports to inform b) rigorous validation experiments of the methods in collaboration with Environmental Health & Safety.
Project Manager: Ana Pinharanda
Outreach and communication Manager: Jaeseung Hahn
Member: Keiko Yasuma and Tiffany Chen
Faculty contact: Professor Elizabeth Hillman
PPE user guidelines
Generate clear and easy to follow guidelines for the general public on how to wear masks, as well as do's and don'ts of bandanas or other cloth versions. Detail best practices for use of other 'at-home' PPE such as gloves, and inform about survival of the virus on different surfaces.
Project Manager: Tiffany Chen
Outreach and communication Manager: Jaeseung Hahn
Outreach and communication members: Elaine Lee and Lydia Wu
Faculty contact: Professor Elizabeth Hillman
Project Summary
The Mask Reutilization Project was developed to provide on-site assistance to the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and the Columbia University Irving Medical Center and had six volunteers. However, in May, we broadened its scope and recruited three other volunteers and two project managers. Making a total of nine volunteers and three project managers. This project was developed in collaboration with the Columbia COVID Tech Innovation Group, specifically Darcy Peterka, and with Professor Elizabeth Hillman as our faculty advisor. We also received training from Stavros Fanourakis at Columbia University Environmental Health and Safety.
In a nutshell, we aimed to: 1) develop a sound, validated "at-home" mask decontamination protocol for N95 respirators; 2) provide clear guidelines on why and how to use PPE. The guidelines are communicated as infographics and illustrate our interpretation of primary scientific literature or official reports. Both of these efforts are still on-going and Project 3 is not planned to finish before September 2020.
For Aim 1, we successfully established a pipeline that can be used by the general public to decontaminate their N95 respirators at home. We are writing a manuscript with our findings and will upload it on bioRxiv and then submit it to a peer review journal.
For Aim 2, we launched a website (www.wearingppeiscaring.org) and a social media campaign (Twitter: @WearingisCaring; Facebook: @WearingPPEisCaring; Instagram: (@wearing_iscaring_).
So far (as of 28th July 2020) we launched three infographics and:
a) the website has 1860 unique views (total 4476 page views),
b) we have 205 followers on Twitter, our infographics reached 53 478 users, and had 6 530 engagements
c) we have 125 followers on Instagram, 2197 post impressions, 376 post engagements
d) we have 171 page followers on Facebook, a total post reach of 12141 users, and 1337 post engagements
We have been featured in the Zuckerman’s Institute Lab in the time of Coronavirus (https://zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/lab-time-coronavirus-masks-come-clean) and in the Center for Science and Society Spotlight: Using science to help society (https://scienceandsociety.columbia.edu/news/center-spotlight-using-science-help-society). ). One of our project managers gave an interview for a Portuguese speaking French radio where she mentions these projects (https://www.rfi.fr/pt/mundo/20200713-teste-à-covid-19-em-casa-pode-revolucionar-luta-contra-covid-19).
Apply here.
On-Site assistance
Description: This project was developed to help meet the coming surge in need for face masks at NY Presbyterian Hospital and CUIMC. We will provide a team of volunteers to assist in a mass effort to sterilize N95 masks. Briefly, caregivers in the hospital will place used masks in paper bags and deposit these at collection points. Our volunteers will assist with collecting them and bringing them to an on-site facility for virus inactivation via dry heat. The restored masks can then be reutilized in the clinic.
Manager: Ana Pinharanda
Members: Emmanuel Antwi-Adjei, Ren Wiscons, Eduardo Perez-Torres, Jaya Pradhan, Yevgeny Rakita and Pamela Graney
"At-Home" mask decontamination
Description: Develop a protocol using household appliances such as microwaves or steamers to decontaminate N95 masks. This method will provide a certain level of safe decontamination for people without access to sufficient masks, or institutional services for mask cleaning.
We will:
a) perform a comprehensive review of established literature as well as recent best-practice reports to inform b) rigorous validation experiments of the methods in collaboration with Environmental Health & Safety.
Project Manager: Ana Pinharanda
Outreach and communication Manager: Jaeseung Hahn
Member: Keiko Yasuma and Tiffany Chen
Faculty contact: Professor Elizabeth Hillman
PPE user guidelines
Generate clear and easy to follow guidelines for the general public on how to wear masks, as well as do's and don'ts of bandanas or other cloth versions. Detail best practices for use of other 'at-home' PPE such as gloves, and inform about survival of the virus on different surfaces.
Project Manager: Tiffany Chen
Outreach and communication Manager: Jaeseung Hahn
Outreach and communication members: Elaine Lee and Lydia Wu
Faculty contact: Professor Elizabeth Hillman
Project Summary
The Mask Reutilization Project was developed to provide on-site assistance to the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and the Columbia University Irving Medical Center and had six volunteers. However, in May, we broadened its scope and recruited three other volunteers and two project managers. Making a total of nine volunteers and three project managers. This project was developed in collaboration with the Columbia COVID Tech Innovation Group, specifically Darcy Peterka, and with Professor Elizabeth Hillman as our faculty advisor. We also received training from Stavros Fanourakis at Columbia University Environmental Health and Safety.
In a nutshell, we aimed to: 1) develop a sound, validated "at-home" mask decontamination protocol for N95 respirators; 2) provide clear guidelines on why and how to use PPE. The guidelines are communicated as infographics and illustrate our interpretation of primary scientific literature or official reports. Both of these efforts are still on-going and Project 3 is not planned to finish before September 2020.
For Aim 1, we successfully established a pipeline that can be used by the general public to decontaminate their N95 respirators at home. We are writing a manuscript with our findings and will upload it on bioRxiv and then submit it to a peer review journal.
For Aim 2, we launched a website (www.wearingppeiscaring.org) and a social media campaign (Twitter: @WearingisCaring; Facebook: @WearingPPEisCaring; Instagram: (@wearing_iscaring_).
So far (as of 28th July 2020) we launched three infographics and:
a) the website has 1860 unique views (total 4476 page views),
b) we have 205 followers on Twitter, our infographics reached 53 478 users, and had 6 530 engagements
c) we have 125 followers on Instagram, 2197 post impressions, 376 post engagements
d) we have 171 page followers on Facebook, a total post reach of 12141 users, and 1337 post engagements
We have been featured in the Zuckerman’s Institute Lab in the time of Coronavirus (https://zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/lab-time-coronavirus-masks-come-clean) and in the Center for Science and Society Spotlight: Using science to help society (https://scienceandsociety.columbia.edu/news/center-spotlight-using-science-help-society). ). One of our project managers gave an interview for a Portuguese speaking French radio where she mentions these projects (https://www.rfi.fr/pt/mundo/20200713-teste-à-covid-19-em-casa-pode-revolucionar-luta-contra-covid-19).