Keeping it clean | Disrupting car buying | Cornhuskers & research
NAVIGATING THE RECOVERY
A SPECIAL REPORT FROM: 
KEEPING IT CLEAN
Ecolab pulls out all the stops to produce disinfectants 
Photo courtesy Ecolab The next time you squirt a blob of hand sanitizer on your hands and rub out the corona cooties, bow toward Minneapolis in thanks. That’s the home of Ecolab, the $15 billion supplier of hygiene and energy technologies to the healthcare and industrial markets. And the company has been working overtime to try to meet the astronomical demand since the pandemic began.
Besides ramping up manufacturing, Ecolab has worked hard to help cities struggling with the worst outbreaks. The company installed 2,000 hand-sanitizing stations in New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital in one weekend. It also helped convert New York’s Four Seasons Hotel into a temporary home for exhausted healthcare workers.
Indiana company harnesses ozone to sanitize hands Life sciences startup 3Oe, based in Carmel, has developed an innovative approach to hand sanitizing. It invented a system that involves infusing ozone into water, creating “aqueous ozone”—which is effective against viruses, bacteria, and spores. Users place their hands inside a patented device that sprays all hand surfaces with aqueous ozone. A few seconds later, the cleansing cycle is complete. (No need to sing “Happy Birthday.”)
3Oe is beta testing the product in schools and hospitals, with plans to seek FDA approval later this year. The company also says it will invest almost $500,000 to accelerate growth and development, along with creating 30 new high-paying jobs by the end of 2022.
APPLIED INGENUITY
The pandemic is changing the way we buy cars It will be quite some time before we understand the ways the COVID-19 is permanently changing our culture, but most people would probably welcome this one: Industry experts predict the virus has changed the way we’ll buy cars forever. That icky experience of haggling over the price while a slick salesperson keeps you waiting may be dying, as dealers move to online sales.
Dealerships are offering an immersive virtual experience, where the customer can walk around the car, talk to the dealer, and kick the tires, all online. Many are also offering free delivery, where customers can test drive the cars in their own neighborhoods and negotiate on the price via email, text, or a chat service. Even traditional car salespeople are going the way of the dodo, as dealers prefer to hire product experts who can communicate across digital media.
CORNHUSKERS vs. COVID-19
University of Nebraska awarded grants to fight pandemic The University of Nebraska College of Medicine has won ten grants to study COVID-19 and related research. The university fast-tracked the grants due to the desperate need to fight the pandemic quickly. The quick approval means researchers can get to work immediately instead of waiting for the typically lengthy grant-approval process.
• Determine mechanisms of COVID-19 attributable arrhythmias • COVID-19 tissue bank expansion under the Clinical Characterization Protocol for Severe Emerging Infections • Risk and Outcomes of COVID-19 in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Insights into the Effects of Immunomodulatory Therapies by Leveraging Big Data • Evaluating for gaps in dialysis decontamination protocol and the resulting potential for rapid COVID-19 spread amongst patients receiving dialysis in the hospital and the community • Deciphering SARS-CoV-2 and Angiotensin Converting Enzyme-2 (ACE2) interacting interphase • Preclinical Evaluation of BET Inhibition as a Novel Therapeutic Option for COVID-19 • Novel Nasopharyngeal Nanofiber Swabs for High Efficiency Capture and Extraction of COVID-19 Samples • Development of a Self-Collection System for Respiratory Pathogen Specimens • CNS ACE2 overexpression potentiates neural and cardiovascular events following coronavirus infection in mice • Screening of CoVID-19 specific protease based anti-viral inhibitors
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