Redesigning N95 Respirator

Problem:

Although healthcare workers are using standard N95 Respirator, over 500 healthcare workers in India have been infected from coronavirus. One of the problems is with the current design of N95 respirator. This design is not comfortable while wearing due to improper size-fit or sealing against the faces of all healthcare workers. Hence, this respirator is insufficient to provide adequate protection from airborne coronavirus.

Solution:

We will provide a solution to improve design of N95 respirator used by healthcare workers of India. 

Positive Live Change:

The collaborative efforts of researchers from USA and India are committed to redesigning the N95 respirator. The proposed solution could significantly improve the personal protection and comfort of the healthcare workers working in a low to middle income country such as India. The proper protection of healthcare workers would actually give them confidence to treat the COVID-19 infected patients in this or any pandemic situation. 

Since the coronavirus outbreak in December 2019, more than 7 million cases of novel corona virus have been reported globally including a death toll of over 400,000. In India alone, as of June 14, 2020, more than 300,000 residents have been infected and nearly 10,000 residents have died directly due to respiratory infections caused by this virus. As the number of coronavirus cases are steadily increasing in India, some critical patients need to be hospitalized. Eventually, this poses a greater risk for healthcare professionals to be exposed to the coronavirus. Thus far, over 500 healthcare workers in India have been infected from the coronavirus. Although healthcare workers have been recommended by CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) for using standard N95 respirator, the design of N95 respirator may not properly  size-fit, seal against the faces, or comfortable for healthcare workers belonging to diverse ethnic backgrounds of India. This improper size-fit, face sealing, and comfort could be the leading cause of coronavirus infection for healthcare workers in India. Our project aims to solving the design problem of N95 respirator in order to make it better size-fit, face sealed, and comfortable for the healthcare worker in India.

In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, our project is interested into redesigning N95 respirator in order to provide effective protection from coronavirus. To redesign N95 respirator, firstly, we will explore the need and measure face structures of healthcare workers belonging to diverse ethnic backgrounds in India. For this, we will recruit nearly 100 healthcare workers from India. We will interview them to understand their need while wearing N95 respirator and scan their face structures using the 3D face scanning technology. After analyzing the similarity and differences in face structures, we will reconfigure the N95 respirator according to their face structures. In order to reconfigure this, we will use the computer aided design (CAD) software and sewing technology. Additionally, the size-fit, face sealing, and comfort-ability of the redesigned N95 respirator will be evaluated and analyzed through human trial of the recruited healthcare workers. Based on our findings from this project, we will prepare an article and publish it in a peer-reviewed journal paper. We will also present our findings in an international conference. This paper and conference could advance knowledge of N95 respirator researchers and manufactures and lead them towards implementing the design concept in their research and manufacturing companies.   

The successful implementation of the proposed solution would make a positive and meaningful impact on the lives of on-duty healthcare workers in India. Initially, the target population i.e. a diverse group of healthy healthcare workers in India would be engaged through interviews to thoroughly understand their needs of wearing of N95 respirator for long-duration. A separate questionnaire would also be provided them to report their subjective feeling of size-fit, face sealing, discomfort while wearing the N95 respirator. Specifically, the collaborative effort of researchers from USA and India would address their needs by redesigning the N95 respirator to properly size-fit and tightly face seal and also be comfortable wearing for the healthcare workers belonging to diverse ethnic backgrounds. To validate the redesign of N95 respirator, a diverse group of healthcare workers would be voluntarily recruited to test the proper size-fit, sealing against the faces, and comfort of the redesigned N95 respirator and would incorporate their feedback in the redesigned N95 respirator. Use of this new respirator would provide better protection and comfort to healthcare workers in India. The proper protection of healthcare workers could give them enough safety and confidence to treat the COVID-19 patients in this evolving pandemic situation.

This proposed project aims at solving the design problem of the N95 respirator for healthcare workers belonging to diverse ethnic backgrounds in India. This project would provide a solution by redesigning the N95 respirator to improve its size-fit, sealing against faces, and comfort for the healthcare workers. This concept of redesigned N95 respirator could improve the personal protection of the healthcare workers, which can slow the spread of coronavirus in our society. Considering our problem and solution for the healthcare workers, this project is well-aligned with the MIT Solve, in particular, related to the Health Security & Pandemic Challenge.

Our solution would be innovative because we will employ the 3D face scanning technology to redesign the N95 respirator. We believe that nobody has used this technology before for the N95 respirator in a low to middle income country such as India. N95 respirator should provide good size-fit and tight seal against the face to prevent any air leakage, which is the passage for airborne infections. India is a very diverse country with people of various ethnic groups having very distinguish facial structures. Our solution is different because we would conduct a 3D face scanning specifically for the diverse healthcare workers population of India to identify the factors related to the face structures, which will greatly help in redesigning the N95 respirator. This would provide the excellent size-fit, facial sealing, and comfort to on-duty healthcare workers of India while they are wearing the respirator for long-duration. The redesigned respirator would provide high level of protection from the droplet borne and airborne infections. This would result in preventing and contacting the influenza like illnesses such as COVID-19 and also lower number of absences from work or lower productivity due to illness.

The core technology that we would be employing is 3D face scanning technology. Although 3D face scanning technology has been commonly used in defense, it has not yet been used in healthcare settings specially for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in a low to middle income country such as India. So, we would be using an existing 3D face scanning technology as key component in our proposed project to analyse the face structures of healthcare workers belonging to different ethnic backgrounds in India. Then, based on our finding about the face structures, we will redesign the N95 respirators using some other technology such as Computer Aided Design (CAD) software and sewing technology. The application of these state-of-the-art technologies could help to enhance the size-fit and comfort-ability of the respirator for the healthcare workers of India.      

The 3D face scanning technology has been widely used in defense, apparel manufacturing, etc. But, it has not yet been used in designing the respirators. Here is the video link of this technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVvyiODtpDo. 

The Computer Aided Design (CAD) software has been widely used in many domains including designing apparel and the video link of this software is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYl9ZuVuLE. This software would greatly help in redesigning the N95 respirator. 

Sewing technology has been widely used in the apparel manufacturing industry and this technology could be like this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebnMaUyS4go. 

The health care workers on the frontlines are at increased risk of contracting the highly transmissible and deadly novel corono virus in the current pandemic situation of COVID-19 in India. The only barrier to protect healthcare workers from the exposure of the novel corona virus while treating the suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 patients is the proper use of Personal Protective Equipment which includes the standard N95 respirators. It is extremely important to have a proper size-fit, tight-seal against the face of the wearers while wearing the N95 respirators to protect them from the droplet borne or airborne viruses.

The proposed project will immediately provide an innovative solution to redesign the N95 respirator for the healthcare workers of India. The effective implementation of this solution by the respirator manufacturers in the long-term could make this redesigned respirator commercially available. And by using this respirator, on-duty healthcare workers of India can get effective protection and comfort while wearing them for long-duration. So, the theory of change lies in the transformation from an unsafe working environments to the safe, reliable working environment for the healthcare workers of India. 

Our proposed project is a concept project, so currently we are not serving any healthcare workers in India. Upon successful implementation of this proposed project, in one year, we estimate to serve at least 100-150 healthcare workers in India depending upon the availability of the funding. If we could commercially implement our concept and mass-produce the redesigned respirators, nearly 300,000 healthcare workers of India could get directly and meaningfully benefit from this project in five years. Additionally, the mass-production of the redesigned respirator would play a crucial role in protecting the healthcare workers of India while treating the patients of highly contagious infectious diseases and mitigating the spread of the disease in future disease outbreaks or epidemics or pandemics as well.     

The most effective respiratory protective measure for health care workers  on the frontlines treating patients of COVID-19 is to use the N95 respirators. A N95 respirators works well only if it is appropriately size-fitted with tight-seal against the face skin of the wearer.

Therefore, our immediate goal within the next year is to identify different factors to redesign N95 respirator for healthcare workers of India considering specifically the face structures of Indian population.

Next, we would communicate our findings to the respirator manufacturers through our journal publications and conference presentations. 

In the next five year, we are interested into implementing this redesign concept and scaling it for the commercial manufacturing of the N95 respirator.    

The key cultural barrier in accomplishing our goals is to properly map all the target population considering the huge population size of India having many different ethnic groups. 

Next barrier would be to implement the 3D face scanning technology to measure and identify the factors related to face structures for redesigning the N95 respirator. This redesigned N95 respirator would provide the size-fitted, tight and comfortable face seal to prevent any air leakage for healthcare workers of India. 

In the next five years, another considerable barrier we expect would be the financial funding to successfully implement the proposed project in a low to middle income country such as India.

To overcome the first barrier, I have collaborated with Dr. Mona Duggal (Assistant Professor, Epidemiology) from the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India to connect us with different organizations to help us map the target population, i.e., healthcare workers in India.

To overcome the next barrier, I have collaborated with an 3D face scanning technology expert, Dr. Lynn Boorady (Professor, Functional Apparel Design, Oklahoma State University). Our collaborative effort would help to generate new ideas in implementing 3D face scan technology for redesigning the N95 respirator.   

For overcoming the financial barrier, we would plan accordingly and seek funding from the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum. We will also contact different respirator manufacturing companies to fund and implement this redesigned N95 respirator for commercial manufacturing.  

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Three people:

Project Leader: Dr. Sumit Mandal, Assistant Professor of Textile Science and Technology, Oklahoma State university, USA.

Project Collaborator: Dr. Lynn Boorady, Professor of Functional Apparel Design, Oklahoma State University, USA.

Project Collaborator: Dr. Mona Duggal, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.   

I am, Dr. Sumit Mandal, a textile scientist and an expert in the textile-based personal protective equipment (PPE). I have published a book, many book chapters, peer-reviewed scientific journal papers in the field of PPE. I have also presented my research work in many international scientific conferences. You can find more about me here: https://humansciences.okstate.edu/dhm/directory/sumit-mandal.html. You can also find my research metrics here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vL6CRkUAAAAJ&hl=en; https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sumit_Mandal9 

Dr. Lynn Boorady is an established expert in the field of 3D scanning technology and the functional apparel designs. She has total 25 years of higher education experience. In this field, she has widely published many peer reviewed work. You can find more about Dr. Boorady here: https://humansciences.okstate.edu/dhm/directory/lynn-boorady.html. You can find Dr. Boorady's research metrics here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bUX6ov4AAAAJ&hl=en; https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lynn_Boorady   

Dr. Mona Duggal is an epidemiologist based in India and regularly guide healthcare workers regarding the uses of PPE in the pandemic situation. She has published many journal papers in the field of effective uses of PPE to slow the spread of infectious viruses. You can find more about Dr. Duggal here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mona_Duggal  

Overall, our team's technical skills, background and diverse expertise puts us in unique position to deliver the proposed solution and makes our team well-positioned to lead this project successfully.  

As this project intended for the healthcare workers of India, I partnered with a medical institute of India, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh, India. Earlier also, I have collaboratively worked with this partner institute and applied for research funding. 

The proposed solution is a concept project on redesigning the N95 respirator for our target population i.e., healthcare workers of India. So we currently do not have any established business model. Considering the emerging pandemic COVID-19 and first major pandemic in independent India, we primarily intend to provide a solution to effectively redesign the N95 respirator. The proposed solution would have a positive and meaningful affect on the frontline healthcare workers of India. This solution could be used by the researchers and respirator manufacturer to develop a business model for commercially manufacture the N95 respirators.   

For the financial sustainability for this project, we will apply for different Indo-U.S. collaborative funding opportunities. We will also approach different N95 respirator manufacturers in India and U.S. to source the funds and continue the implementation of this project.