Recently Chandan K. Sen, PhD, the J. Stanley Battersby Chair, Professor of Surgery, and Director of the Indiana Center for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering at Indiana University School of Medicine spoke at the University of Oxford via video conference. Sen discussed the potential of an electroceutical fabric to be utilized as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the fight against coronaviruses. The fabric manipulates the electrokinetic properties of coronaviruses to reduce the potential for infection.
It is well known that viruses can be electrically charged. Coronaviruses rely on electrostatic interactions to be able to attach to their host and assemble themselves into an infective form. Their structure must remain stable to spread infection. The IU researchers sought to exploit the coronaviruses' electrokinetic characteristics to try to dismantle their infectivity.
The Sen and his team at IU School of Medicine have been heavily involved in the generation of foundational evidence of the electroceutical fabric's mechanism of action and use during the last six years. The research results demonstrate that the ability of the virus to infect is fully eliminated after contact with the fabric, which disrupts the electrostatic forces the virus needs.
