Source: Pandemic Design –
One interesting topic I come across is “how will our pandemic experience influence technology and design in the coming years“, even after the coronavirus is long gone (preferably) or at least under control? There is a growing awareness that there are things we could be doing better to minimize infection transmission in various commercial and institutional settings, in addition to hospitals where this has been an obvious concern. Even if the coronavirus is completely defeated, reducing the spread of more routine “germs” like colds and influenza or gastrointestinal “bugs” would make good business sense overall, as those account for lost productivity and suffering too. Maybe it’s time we pay more attention to infection prevention in general, beyond just hand washing.
With this interest in mind, I recently agreed to participate on an Advisory Board with a local firm, fabrik architects inc., to provide input on design, materials, and devices that can be used in projects to address the current pandemic and possibly other infection transmission concerns. The Advisory Board members include architects, engineers, and epidemiologists. I look forward to contributing whatever expertise and ideas I have on things like UV disinfection and antimicrobial materials, in what is sometimes called “engineered infection prevention“. It is one way that academics can help to translate current research into new best practices.
A Professor in Waterloo Engineering 
Interesting. Any thoughts on ways to keep the friendly microbes that help our gut biomes while getting rid of the baddies?
Good question, and a bit outside of my expertise. But it’s my understanding that a good and varied diet helps keep a healthy mix of helpful microbes in the gut, and this lessens the chance of a bad microbe being able to take over. And then, if we can avoid ingesting nasty gut microbes (like some E. coli, Salmonella, norovirus, etc.) we’ll be better off too. This is where sanitization, disinfection, hand-washing, etc. comes in.