Chemistry Students and Faculty Produce Hand Sanitizer for Hospital Workers

STONY BROOK, NY, March 26, 2020 — Hand sanitizer, produced by the Stony Brook University Chemistry Department, will be shared with Stony Brook University Hospital and the Long Island State Veteran’s Home to aid health care providers working on the front line of the COVID-19 patient care. Manufactured in the Department’s six general chemistry labs, with water and raw health grade materials, and following World Health Organization protocols, the hand sanitizer is packaged in 4-liter plastic containers, easy to distribute and use.

SUNY Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry, Peter Tonge, is leading the initiative with the support of Dr. Xinxin Yang and Dr. Shabnam Davoodi. Dr. Yang is a research scientist in Nicole Sampson’s lab (Sampson is also a SUNY distinguished professor of Chemistry and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences), and Dr. Davoodi is a postdoctoral student in the Tonge lab. In only one day of production, the team made 17 gallons of hand sanitizer.

“We are in a traumatic community emergency and people have come together and said, ‘We’re going to get this done.’ It’s quite amazing,” Interim President Michael Bernstein said of the innovative approach during a recent recording of the University’s “Beyond the Expected” podcast.

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Stony Brook University, widely regarded as a SUNY flagship, is going far beyond the expectations of today’s public universities. With more than 26,000 students, 2,700 faculty members, nearly 200,000 alumni, an academic medical center and 18 NCAA Division I athletic programs, it is one of only four University Center campuses in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. The University embraces its mission to provide comprehensive undergraduate, graduate, and professional education of the highest quality, and has been ranked among the top 35 public universities in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Fostering a commitment to academic research and intellectual endeavors, Stony Brook’s membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU) places it among the top 65 research institutions in North America. The University’s distinguished faculty have earned esteemed awards such as the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Indianapolis Prize for animal conservation, Abel Prize and the inaugural Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. Part of the management team of Brookhaven National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Stony Brook is one of only eight universities that has a role in running a national laboratory. Providing economic growth for neighboring communities and the wider geographic region, the University totals an impressive $7.23 billion in increased economic output on Long Island. Follow us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/stonybrooku/) and Twitter(@stonybrooku).