UNM researchers discover certain materials combined with UV light can kill coronavirus and other viruses
November 18, 2020 - Kim Delker
As the deadly COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc around the world with no end in sight, new ways in which to stop the spread or mitigate the effects of the disease are few.
Although most experts agree that a vaccine would significantly slow or eventually stop the spread, the work to develop, approve and distribute such a vaccine are likely months away. That leaves us with only prevention efforts such as masks, social distancing and disinfecting, which partially due to human inconsistencies in behavior, have proven to be variable in effectiveness.
Despite these grim realities about the novel coronavirus that has taken 2020 by storm, disrupting the work, school and personal lives of nearly everyone on the globe, some University of New Mexico researchers have found a possible breakthrough in how to manage this virus, as well as future ones.
A team led by the Center for Biomedical Engineering faculty David Whitten, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, along with Eva Chi and Linnea Ista, faculty members in the same department, have found some light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.
The main finding of their research, highlighted in the paper,
“Highly Effective Inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 by Conjugated Polymers and Oligomers,” published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, involves the ability of the combination of certain polymers and oligomers, when combined with UV light, to almost completely kill the coronavirus.
UNM co-authors on the paper were Florencia A. Monge, of UNM’s Center for Biomedical Engineering and the biomedical engineering graduate program; Virginie Bondu of the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the UNM School of Medicine; Alison M. Kell, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the UNM School of Medicine; and Patrick L. Donabedian of the nanoscience and microsystems engineering graduate program at UNM. Also on the team are Kirk S. Schanze and Pradeepkumar Jagadesan, both of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Although disinfectants such as bleach or alcohol are effective against the virus, they are volatile and corrosive, which limit lasting sterilization of surfaces treated by these products, Whitten said.
What is different about these polymer and oligomer materials is that when activated with UV light, they provide a coating that is shown to be fast acting and highly effective, reducing the concentration of the virus by five orders of magnitude, Chi said.
“These materials have shown to have broad-spectrum antiviral properties,” she said.
Whitten points out that in order for the material to be active against the virus, it must be exposed to light. Light activates the “docking” process that is important and necessary for placing the oligomer or polymer at the surface of the virus particle, allowing the absorption of light that generates the reactive oxygen intermediate at the surface of the virus particle.
“As far as we know so far, materials such as ours are not active against SARS-CoV-2 in the dark and require activation by irradiation with ultraviolet or visible light, depending on where the specific antimicrobial absorbs light,” he said. “In the dark, our antimicrobial materials ‘dock’ with the virus, and then on irradiation, they activate oxygen. It is this active, excited state of oxygen that starts the chain of reactions that inactivate the virus.”