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RENOWNED INVENTOR HOURANI HONORED
Memorial Resident Receives “Award of Excellence”
by the Honorable Philip Berquist, Honorary Consul for the Republic of Croatia
In a recent article on a trip to Washington, D.C. I attended a celebration of the life of retiring Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. The lavish affair was hosted by Houstonian Monzer Hourani, Hatch’s close friend of many years. It was a spectacle including a luncheon and dinner followed by a concert at the venerable Kennedy Center featuring the orchestra and choir of the University of Houston, conducted at times by Hourani himself! The concert was originally planned to be in the National Cathedral but the unexpected death of former President George H.W. Bush on the Friday prior caused the concert to be moved to the Kennedy Center.
Hourani is a renowned inventor, engineer, scientist, entrepreneur and architect known for building state of the art medical facilities throughout the country. This article attempts to be an important update on Mr. Hourani.
When we burn a piece of toast our natural reaction is to simply discard the ruined breakfast, or perhaps even try scraping off the charred residue in an attempt to salvage the poor slice. As it turns out, Monzer Hourani found his burned toast as the inspiration for perhaps the most important scientific invention of our time.
In March of 2020, near the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Hourani’s housekeeper had put some cheese on a slice of bread and placed it in the kitchen toaster for part of his breakfast. She went on to do some household chores, forgetting about the bread. Hourani smelled smoke and found the toaster smoking with the cheese bread on fire.
Hourani did not try to salvage his breakfast. Using his natural curiosity, he considered that very high heat could indeed possibly destroy airborne diseases and pathogens, potentially including Covid-19. This curiosity led him to imagine how a high-heat device (100 degrees Celsius / 212 degrees Fahrenheit) might be used to be placed in normal HVAC air conditioning units that would create extremely high temperatures to capture foreign elements in the air immediately prior to the device being cooled to allow the resulting air to be run through the air conditioning unit.
This was not the first important invention by Hourani. Following the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez he invented a device to assist in cleanup of that disaster and future oil spills. He also was concerned by the seemingly inability of the reliability of windows surviving hurricane winds. This resulted in his invention to brace windows in such horrific storms that has now been widely implemented.
Hourani brought his latest theory to the University of Houston, specially to Dr. Zhifeng Ren, the Director of the Superconductivity Center of Texas and Dr. Paul Chu, the Founding Director and Chief Scientist at the Center and they immediately went to work with Hourani. They were joined by the UTMB Galveston National Lab and the Texas A&M Engineering and Experiment Station in College Station.
The result is the “Biodefense Air Protection SystemTM” which has been proven through numerous trials to eliminate 99.9999% of SARS-CoV2, (Covid-19) and 99.98% of anthrax! A new Houston corporation, Integrated Viral Protection (IVP), was created to produce and market the invention. After the initial HVAC system was developed several mobile devices were created as well.
Mind you that the toast was burned in March, 2020 and his devices were available in September 2020! Hourani was honored on Thursday, April 8, 2021, by the Engineering News Record, a publication regarding engi-
Hourani’s Biodefense Air Protection SystemTM
Call for free market analysis
neering advances for over 140 years, as the 2020 winner of its coveted “Award of Excellence” at a special luncheon at the Intercontinental Hotel Houston-Medical Center. The Intercontinental Hotel is the first hotel in the world to use this technology. Speaking at the luncheon was the former Governor of Texas and former Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, former Mayor of San Antonio, Henry Cisneros, Chancellor of Texas A&M, John Sharp, Dr Ren, with virtual comments by, among others, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Senators John Cronyn and Marco Rubio.
Hourani’s longtime colleague, Dr. Garrett Peel, who is the Founding Director of Integrated Viral Protection has been quoted as saying, “We are elated to be recognized for our achievement in creating a medical technology to address the coronavirus pandemic. We have to use science and technology to lead us through this public health crisis. The invention by Monzer Hourani offers those working and living inside schools, office buildings, hospitals, gyms, convention centers and places of worship, the ability to breathe with confidence and help mitigate the spread of airborne Covid-19.”
Later that evening a gala dinner-concert was held at the Brown Theater at the Wortham Center. A combined Moores School of Music Orchestra and the youth orchestra Virtuosi entertained with Beethoven overtures, one each conducted by Franz Anton Krager and Andrzej Grabiec with the last movement of the Beethoven 5th Symphony conducted by Hourani.
The portable devices are now available in three sizes - the “Venue Mobile Unit” to be used, for example, in convention centers, school gymnasiums, and concert halls; the “Room Mobile Unit” for areas up to 2,000 square feet and the “Travel Mobile Unit” for areas up to 250 square feet such as hotel rooms. There is also potential development of units that can be fitted into commercial airliners.
IVP’s Biodefense Airborne Protection System could very well be one of the most important inventions of our time - thanks to Hourani’s curiosity of a burned piece of toast!
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2809 Wichita Street | MLS #26679898
$469,000
3 story new construction home with 2311 SF of living space! Features include an island kitchen that opens up to the living room, and several balconies overlooking the city! Easy access to Downtown Houston & the Museum District.
2807 Wichita Street | MLS #77715711
$474,000
3-story new construction home located inside the loop with 4 bedrooms, 3 full baths, 2 half baths, and a 2 car garage. Minutes from U of H, the Texas Medical Center, NRG, and the Houston Zoo.
