UAF Invents Tech to Fight COVID-19

May 4, 2020

PAPR Hoods
Positive air pressure respirator hoods required adapters to allow old style hoods be used with new ventilation systems. Photo by Dayne Broderson.

About 30 proposals for inventions to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic have come in to the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Last month, as the disease came to Alaska, the university’s Center for Innovation, Commercialization, and Entrepreneurship put out a call to staff and students for innovations to deal with the coronavirus.

 “Most of the proposals are related to science, engineering and technology, a couple about modeling of the virus and a couple in the arts,” says Center ICE’s Mark Billingsley.

 This call for proposals, the Immediate Innovation for Coronavirus Project, was designed to support immediate action.

 Billingsley was happy they received so many proposals, and he wishes he could fund them all. The money is coming from the Office of Naval Research, which wants to move fast to respond to COVID-19.