• Focus Areas
    • Cause Selection
    • Global Health & Wellbeing
      • Effective Altruism Community Growth (Global Health and Wellbeing)
      • Farm Animal Welfare
      • Global Aid Policy
      • Global Health & Development
      • Scientific Research
      • South Asian Air Quality
    • Longtermism
      • Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness
      • Effective Altruism Community Growth (Longtermism)
      • Potential Risks from Advanced AI
    • Other Areas
      • Criminal Justice Reform
      • History of Philanthropy
      • Immigration Policy
      • Land Use Reform
      • Macroeconomic Stabilization Policy
  • Grants
  • Research & Updates
    • Research Reports
    • Blog Posts
    • Notable Lessons
    • In the News
  • About Us
    • Grantmaking Process
    • How to Apply for Funding
    • Team
    • Contact Us
    • Stay Updated
  • We’re hiring!
  • Focus Areas
    • Cause Selection
    • Global Health & Wellbeing
      • Effective Altruism Community Growth (Global Health and Wellbeing)
      • Farm Animal Welfare
      • Global Aid Policy
      • Global Health & Development
      • Scientific Research
      • South Asian Air Quality
    • Longtermism
      • Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness
      • Effective Altruism Community Growth (Longtermism)
      • Potential Risks from Advanced AI
    • Other Areas
      • Criminal Justice Reform
      • History of Philanthropy
      • Immigration Policy
      • Land Use Reform
      • Macroeconomic Stabilization Policy
  • Grants
  • Research & Updates
    • Research Reports
    • Blog Posts
    • Notable Lessons
    • In the News
  • About Us
    • Grantmaking Process
    • How to Apply for Funding
    • Team
    • Contact Us
    • Stay Updated
  • We’re hiring!

University of Colorado — COVID-19 Personal Protective Equipment Experiments

Visit Grantee Site
  • Focus Area: Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness
  • Organization Name: University of Colorado
  • Amount: $250,000

  • Award Date: April 2020

Table of Contents


    Grant investigator: Jacob Trefethen

    This page was reviewed but not written by the grant investigator. University of Colorado staff also reviewed this page prior to publication.


    Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $250,000 to the University of Colorado to support experiments on the decontamination and safe reuse of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers (HCWs) treating COVID-19 patients. This effort is led by Professor May Chu at the Colorado School of Public Health with collaborators from academic research labs, professional PPE testing laboratories, and infectious disease hospitals around the world.

    The aim of this study is to identify simple, executable processes for decontamination of homemade masks, surgical masks, and N95 respirators that can be applied anywhere, from hospitals to low-resource settings, so that HCWs are protected. The results could inform PPE recommendations for HCW protection from bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Professor Chu serves on the WHO’s Expert Advisory Committee for COVID-19 and helped lead the United States’ response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic at the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

    This falls within our focus area of biosecurity and pandemic preparedness.

    Related Items

    • Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness

      SecureBio — Biosecurity Research

      Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $1,420,937 over three years to SecureBio to support their research on reducing risks from advanced biotechnology. This falls within our focus area...

      Read more
    • Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness

      Oliver Crook — Travel Grant for Biological Attribution Event

      Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $4,553 to Oliver Crook to support his travel to an event on biological attribution bringing together government policymakers and technical experts. This falls within our focus area...

      Read more
    • Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness

      Harvard University — Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics

      Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $190,000 to Harvard University to support the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, a research center focusing on epidemiology and infectious disease modeling. This...

      Read more
    Back to Grants Database
    Open Philanthropy
    Open Philanthropy
    • Careers
    • Press Kit
    • Governance
    • Privacy Policy
    • Stay Updated
    Mailing Address
    Open Philanthropy
    182 Howard Street #225
    San Francisco, CA 94105
    Email
    [email protected]
    Media Inquiries
    [email protected]
    Anonymous Feedback
    Feedback Form

    © Open Philanthropy 2022 Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License. If you'd like to translate this content into another language, please get in touch!