STONY BROOK, NY, March 26, 2020 — Hand sanitizer, produced by the Stony Brook University Chemistry Department, will be shared with Stony Brook University Hospital and the Long Island State Veteran’s Home to aid health care providers working on the front line of the COVID-19 patient care. Manufactured in the Department’s six general chemistry labs, with water and raw health grade materials, and following World Health Organization protocols, the hand sanitizer is packaged in 4-liter plastic containers, easy to distribute and use.
SUNY Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry, Peter Tonge, is leading the initiative with the support of Dr. Xinxin Yang and Dr. Shabnam Davoodi. Dr. Yang is a research scientist in Nicole Sampson’s lab (Sampson is also a SUNY distinguished professor of Chemistry and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences), and Dr. Davoodi is a postdoctoral student in the Tonge lab. In only one day of production, the team made 17 gallons of hand sanitizer.
“We are in a traumatic community emergency and people have come together and said, ‘We’re going to get this done.’ It’s quite amazing,” Interim President Michael Bernstein said of the innovative approach during a recent recording of the University’s “Beyond the Expected” podcast.
This story was originally published by Stony Brook University.