The wellspring of innovation can be a strange and quirky place. Moili'ili-based Cellular Bioengineering is a master at mining the well, finding "Aha!" moments even in an "Oops!" The company got off the ground in 2003 with its bioengineered corneal tissue. That project is well on its way to helping the world's 10 million people with corneal blindness.
In the meantime, the folks at CBI noticed certain properties in the corneal hydrogel - they transmogrified it and created a new material that cleans radioactive uranium in wounds. Then they created another version that sops up radioactive and nuclear contamination at nuclear power plants and research labs. Existing standard procedure for spills is often soap and water, Windex or duct tape - so folks at CBI think they're onto a good thing. This gel contains and cleans up toxic contaminants, while sterilizing down to the microscopic level.
Then, one morning, researchers came into the lab to find a bottle of the gel had tipped over (Oops!) spilling its contents on the floor. Cleaning up, the noticed the floor was super clean (Aha!). So, they worked some more and created yet more versions.
As it turns out, the nonsmelly, user-friendly, wipe-on, peel-off hydrogel can deal with the leavings of everyone from terrorists to toddlers. It has been shown to be effective against the drug-resistant "superbug" MRSA, which can be a life-threatening problem in hospitals, as well as against chemical and biological agents that could be used in a terrorist attack.
The commercial version of the gel, which has the internal code name of GenieGel, works on stained boat hulls, algae red dirt, mold; it even cleaned a bathroom at McKinley High School that had be trammeled by decades of dirt.
Division general manager Roberto Mandanas sees a market for the hydrogel family in homes, hospitals, industries - and a bottle of it next to every fire extinguisher in every public building across the country.
The patents have been filed and the hydrogel is already available in the rad-nuc market, where the market potential is about $5 billion a year just for the Department of energy's decontamination and decommissioning projects. CBI is also talking with distributors and nearing commercialization for other markets.
It's probably not surprising that the team is spinning again, this time with a spray that creates a barrier against would-be permanent stains. Taggers, be warned.
