Ryan Smith, CALIT2 facilities manager, delivers a donation of cleanroom suits, masks and gloves to UCI medical students PPE drive.
March 24, 2020
UC Irvine’s Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility (INRF) and Bio-Organic Nanofabrication (BiON) facility donated cleanroom suits, masks and gloves to a group of first year UCI medical students who have organized a collection drive for medical supplies.
The medical students began collecting donated medical supplies on March 30, in an effort to help ease the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves and masks needed by healthcare workers to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
On their first day, Monday, March 30th, the UCI School of Medicine students collected 372 N95 masks, 900 surgical masks, 40 boxes of gloves, 30 face shields and 100 goggles.
Earlier this week, Marc Palazzo, INRF facility administrator, and Jake Hes, INRF cleanroom manager received an email from the UCI School of Medicine which addressed the urgent need of supplies for frontline care providers and staff. Richard Chang, INRF senior process development engineer, quickly accessed the facilities inventory and gathered the supplies, said Ryan Smith, CALIT2 facilities manager.
INRF/BiON’s donation included 500 cleanroom masks, 3,000 nitrile gloves, and several cases of cleanroom shoe covers, suits and hoods.
“The cleanroom facilities are in minimal use at this time and since they have the types of supplies needed, they wanted to contribute,” said G.P Li, CALIT2 and INRF director.
The PPE drive is located in the parking lot at UCI Health’s Gavin Herbert Eye Institute. Donations are being accepted from 8 a.m. until noon through April 2. Donation will also be collected during the same hours on Saturday, April 4.
The UCI Gavin Herbert Eye Institute is located at 850 Health Sciences Rd in Irvine.
For more information about donating medical supplies, and how you can help, visit http://www.ucihealth.org/giving/covid-19
– Sharon Henry
