Dr. Lee Shih-yuan, a professor of Dept. of Chemistry, TKU, participates in a National Taiwan University Biomechatronic Engineering research team, and they successfully develop “NTU-VirusBom,” an anti-virus compound that can break down the surface structures of the H1N1. Dr. Lee indicates that their team has transferred the technique to the biotechnology industry to make hand sanitizer spray, liquid hand soap, and the materials for filtration and protection.

The project gathers the elites of Taiwan from different fields of sciences like medical science, bioengineering, and chemistry, etc, and Dr. Lee is responsible for the part of chemistry. He took the kidney cells from dogs to test different compounds, and selected about 10 from 40 kinds of compounds to experiment repeatedly. “I am very lucky,” said Dr. Lee. “It happens to be the right one!”

The research team has proved that the low-concentration (30-300ppm) of NTU-VirusBom can destroy Nanovirus like H1N1, bird flu virus, Enterovirus, as well as illness-causing bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus. Since NTU-VirusBom does not poison the cells when its concentration is less than 1000 ppm, hence it can break down the surface structures of the H1N1 in five minutes without harming human bodies. Dr. Lee expresses that although it is not easy to develop NTU-VirusBom into medicine at the moment for they still need a lot of time and money to research, they will spare no effort to achieve it. ( ~Shu-chun Yen )