Copper vs COVID

COPPER VS COVID

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, there was one particular group of researchers who were more prepared than most to assist in the global effort to protect the population.

Dr Sandra Wilks from Health Sciences and Professor Bill Keevil from Biological Sciences lead a team investigating the length of time viruses and bacteria can remain on surfaces, exploring the effectiveness of various decontamination methods, as well as a particular focus on the antimicrobial benefits of copper.

Together with their team, which also includes Dr Catherine Bryant and Dr Rachel Owen, they have secured over £200,000 worth of consultancy funding since the start of the pandemic. Working with a range of SMEs and global companies, including some linked directly to overseas government departments, the team has been focusing primarily on the use of copper alloys in different product types.

The antimicrobial uses of copper Sandra is an interdisciplinary Lecturer in Medical Microbiology and has extensive experience in biofilm research, with a particular interest in understanding how complex microbial communities develop and can be detected. “Bill and I have been working together in this field for 20 years,” she explained. “Our research into the antimicrobial use of copper and its protection properties against fungi, bacteria and viruses has enabled us to provide consultancy to hundreds of organisations in that time. The pandemic and the research needed around COVID-19 means we are busier than ever.”

Bill first published a paper in 2015 investigating how human coronavirus 229E, which is closely related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus which causes COVID-19, remains infectious on common touch surface materials such as stainless steel and how it can be rapidly inactivated on a range of copper alloys. Bill said: “At the time very few people were publishing papers about coronavirus, so when COVID-19 began this was one of the key papers in this field of research.”

Work by Sandra, Bill and the team has already led to the installation of antimicrobial touch surfaces globally in hospitals, supermarkets, on public transport and in a busy airport, and this has been further expanded during the pandemic.

“Our work with external companies has centred, most recently, on testing the effectiveness of solid copper and copper alloy materials and coatings in combatting the spread of COVID-19,” explained Sandra. “We are working with Copper Cover Ltd to show that their copper powder spray inactivates SARS-CoV-2 in as little as one minute. The powder is cold sprayed at high velocity, forming a bond with the base metal, stronger than a weld and producing a permanent, antimicrobial coating.”

This spray has already been used to ‘copperise’ door, trolley and fridge handles at Morrisons supermarket in Totton, near Southampton, and several door handles in Building 85 at the University.

Food standards Sandra and Bill’s team has recently been commissioned by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to carry out research exploring the survival of SARS-CoV-2 on the surfaces of various foods and food packaging materials at a range of temperatures, humidity levels and time periods.

“We are conducting laboratory-based studies to artificially inoculate infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus onto these surfaces and then measure how the amount of infectious virus present on those surfaces declines over time,” said Dr Catherine Bryant, who is the lead researcher. “We undertake our work at Southampton General Hospital in the University’s high containment laboratories where we have been able to work on various COVID-19 strains.”

The FSA completed and published a risk assessment in 2020 concluding that it was very unlikely that you could catch coronavirus via food. The findings from the Southampton research will be used to confirm this assessment.

Beyond COVID “We are hoping that all of this work will allow us to develop our translational and applied microbiology work,” said Sandra. “It will also help us understand microbial communities in different environments and how we can produce more effective antimicrobial products to ultimately reduce the spread of diseases such as COVID-19.”

“Our research into the antimicrobial use of copper and its protection properties against fungi, bacteria and viruses has enabled us to provide consultancy to hundreds of organisations.”

Dr Sandra Wilks Lecturer in Medical Microbiology, Health Sciences