HAMPTON ROADS, Va. - A Virginia company is unveiling a brand new technology, with help from jellyfish, to help in the fight against COVID-19.
“We're just pretty motivated by the fact that we're making an impact to open the economy, places back up safely,” Senseware CEO Dr. Serene Al-Momen told News 3.
Senseware, a technology company based in northern Virginia, specializes in air monitoring.
“We quickly realized that the primary concerns of transmissions are airborne transmission for the COVID-19 virus,” Al-Momen said.
The technology the company is rolling out is a new pathogen-detecting monitoring system using specific antibodies and proteins from jellyfish that light up when coming in contact with COVID-19.
“We're talking about having the results available within minutes, under five minutes,” she said. “If the virus is detected, we immediately in real time with our cloud-based technology alert you. You see the threat, the detection on your phone. You get an email if you're an operator. You're able to quickly mitigate that issue.”
Al-Momen told News 3 the product is in the final stages of third-party testing. She added they’re also looking throughout Virginia, including Hampton Roads, for beta testing sites, specifically healthcare and treatment centers.
“This is creating a way to create a safer environment and begin to create that confidence in people to re-populate spaces,” she said.
She said it's all about keeping people safe and giving them peace of mind.
“Knowledge is power,” Al-Momen said. “When you're having that real time, around the clock, monitoring of all aspects of air quality, it will create that confidence for people to know that there's that data available in real time.”
