Thursday, July 3, 2008

TBS handheld device kills superbugs

By Brendan Lynch

TBS Technologies Inc. has taken a hot-button issue — the spread of infectious superbugs — and developed a simple push-button device to eliminate such dangers from a room.

TBS makes a foot-long handheld device — it looks like a futuristic pocketbook — intended to kill superbugs such as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and anthrax. In the event of a room being contaminated by a superbug, the user inserts a cylindrical canister into the top of the device and pushes a button. The system mixes precursor chemicals in the canister into chlorine dioxide gas, which it disperses through a vent on the side. The device takes two minutes to make the chlorine dioxide, and another two minutes to disperse it.

Chlorine dioxide is the chemical agent that was used to clean the Hart Senate Office Building in 2001, when an envelope containing anthrax was mailed to then-Senate majority leader Tom Daschle. The advantage of the gas, according to TBS president Norman Strate, is that it eliminates superbugs in cracks and crevices, where a liquid cleaning agent may not reach. TBS’s device, however, is designed to clean one room at a time, such as a lab after an experiment, rather than a whole building.

Kim Lewis, director of Northeastern University’s Antimicrobial Discovery Center, said the device may not be revolutionary, but is welcome in a narrow field of disinfectants with little recent innovation. “I think it may be a useful addition to the arsenal of things available to us,” he said.

While public paranoia about anthrax may have died down since 2001, news reports of lethal infections by superbugs like MRSA still resonate. An Oct.17, 2007, report in the Journal of the American Medical Association said more than 18,000 in-hospital deaths were caused by MRSA infections in the U.S. in 2005.

“We think our timing is good,” Strate said.

The self-funded company’s target markets are hospitals, other health care facilities and research institutions. Strate said the company will initially focus on organizations such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Environmental Agency, who would use the product to clean their own labs.

The three-person company consists of Strate, the former CEO of fuel cell company Protonex Technology Corp.; CEO and device inventor Thomas Dee, formerly of Ionics Inc.; and executive VP Barry Clapp, formerly of IBM Corp., Cortex Corp., Source Recovery Co. and Advanced Electron Beams.

The company has no customers yet — it’s holding off marketing until the fall, after it can test its device against a new National Science Foundation protocol for killing superbugs and can gain EPA appproval, according to Strate.
The company’s nominal acronym initally stood for Total Biocide Solutions until the company realized the name was confusing people.

“Everyone thought we were trying to kill people,” Strate said. “I think we were trying to be technically accurate.”