Institute teams are focused and dedicated to discovering solutions to real-world medical problems – in areas such as airway disorders, burns and wounds, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurologic injury and disease, oral health, skin disease, exercise medicine, vascular malformations and trauma and critical care – and now, rapidly responding to the COVID-19 crisis. Researchers are collaborating across disciplines to develop novel devices and effective treatments to mitigate the pandemic, including:

• Dr. Chris Barty is developing a low-cost UVC light source found in Blu-ray players that can rapidly and effectively disinfect surfaces and air.
• Drs. Elliot Botvinick and Bernard Choi are creating a ventilator that repurposes a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine, allowing patients to control their own breathing with less lung trauma.
• Drs. Tom Milner, Brian Wong and Govind Rajan established the Bridge Ventilator Consortium (BVC) for individuals, universities and private enterprises to support the development, testing and translation of methods and devices to prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19 patients. Two bridge ventilators spun out of the BVC with the group now focused on noninvasive ventilation, microwave inactivation, light-based therapies and other technology-based solutions to address COVID-related problems.  Read more about UC Irvine Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic’s Bridge Ventilator Consortium.
• Drs. Tom Milner, Matt Brenner and Robert Brown are developing an optical screening system that allows rapid and low-cost detection of individuals infected with SARS-CoVII.
• Other researchers are investigating long-term, light-based diagnostic, sterilization and treatment strategies, including therapeutic approaches that use photo-active agents that target COVID-19 in the throat and low-cost diagnostic imaging that can detect micro-clotting in COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients.