Perhaps some low hanging fruit for pandemic prevention would be better disinfectants. Bleach can kill 99.999% of pathogens, but it causes nasty fumes and irritation on skin contact. If you can get the same results as bleach with reduced negative side effects, it should result in more people using it in more situations. There’s a new disinfectant called Steriplex SD that seems promising.
Another thing worth considering is that more people might do bio-hacking at home if sterilization were less of a pain. This could increase or decrease risk depending on your perspective (more potentially competent counter-agents, e.g.)
The problem with such things is that bleach (and alcohol) kill everything. If you make something that is safe for humans, the mechanism that protects our cells could probably work for the infectious agents as well.
Apparently somehow Steriplex SD (in its activated form) is only a mild lung/skin/eye irritant. See the MSDS here. It contains elemental silver, peroxyacetic acid, acetic acid, ethanol, and hydrogen peroxide.
While it does kill some nasty bacterial spores like Chlostridium difficile, this particular product doesn’t work on anthrax spores (neither does bleach). They have another product called Steriplex Ultra that does kill Anthrax, which is somewhat more hazardous (you have to wear a breathing mask), containing glycerol and higher concentrations of the active ingredients.
Perhaps some low hanging fruit for pandemic prevention would be better disinfectants. Bleach can kill 99.999% of pathogens, but it causes nasty fumes and irritation on skin contact. If you can get the same results as bleach with reduced negative side effects, it should result in more people using it in more situations. There’s a new disinfectant called Steriplex SD that seems promising.
Another thing worth considering is that more people might do bio-hacking at home if sterilization were less of a pain. This could increase or decrease risk depending on your perspective (more potentially competent counter-agents, e.g.)
The problem with such things is that bleach (and alcohol) kill everything. If you make something that is safe for humans, the mechanism that protects our cells could probably work for the infectious agents as well.
Apparently somehow Steriplex SD (in its activated form) is only a mild lung/skin/eye irritant. See the MSDS here. It contains elemental silver, peroxyacetic acid, acetic acid, ethanol, and hydrogen peroxide.
While it does kill some nasty bacterial spores like Chlostridium difficile, this particular product doesn’t work on anthrax spores (neither does bleach). They have another product called Steriplex Ultra that does kill Anthrax, which is somewhat more hazardous (you have to wear a breathing mask), containing glycerol and higher concentrations of the active ingredients.