When Dr Beau Wangtrakuldee realised so-called protective gear was failing female scientists and healthcare workers, she started a company to provide an effective alternative.
Chemist and entrepreneur Wangtrakuldee had a painful yet enlightening experience while working as a post-doc at the University of Pennsylvania, developing new second-line drugs to treat prostate cancers. She was in the midst of synthesising some chemicals when she reached out to grab some equipment, knocking over a flask of toxic substances with her ill-fitting lab coat.
“I had a lab coat on, I had goggles on. I did everything right,” she told The Brilliant. “But within minutes my right leg was burned.” The injury healed within a couple of weeks, but the episode was an eye-opener for Wangtrakuldee. She started asking other female researchers if they’d experienced anything similar.
“My friends told me they’d accidentally set themselves on fire because the lab coat was too loose,” she says. “That’s where the original idea to make functional protective clothes that look good started.”
Personal protective equipment (PPE) has, for obvious reasons, become a household phrase during the last few years. But for scientists, PPE, such as goggles and lab coats, has always been of paramount importance. Just as our masks need to be fitted properly for the best protection against COVID-19, scientists require gear that fits their bodies so they can work safely and effectively.
The problem is that, overwhelmingly, personal protective equipment (PPE) has been designed with the male body in mind. That means PPE is too big for some female scientists, placing them at risk of injury – longer sleeves are more likely to catch on things and wider goggles are more likely to slip off, for example.
And that’s where Wangtrakuldee recognised and ran with the opportunity to change things.
“As a scientist in drug discovery, you’re in the beginning phases of something that might come to market 20 years down the line,” she says. “I wanted to create something that can help people now.”
So, in 2018, she left academia and set up AmorSui, a company that makes protective and antimicrobial clothing to be used in laboratory and clinical settings.
Innovation promotes inclusion
The core aim of AmorSui (Latin for self-love) is to empower more women to feel safe in the pursuit of science by addressing the problem of potentially unsafe PPE. One of Wangtrakuldee’s most successful products is a hijab designed to improve the safety of those who wear the head covering in the laboratory.
Many hijab-wearing women who work or study in labs simply make do with their day-to-day head coverings. These are usually made from flammable materials that also absorb, rather than repel, liquids – essentially offering the opposite of protection.
Wangtrakuldee’s flame-resistant hijab seeks to change that, and it took plenty of trial-and-error experiments to get the components of the fabric right. The material had to be not only fire resistant, but invulnerable to electricity and chemical penetration, with moisture-wicking properties. On top of all of that, it needed to feel and look good. “Studies have shown that PPE needs to be comfortable and that a better fit encourages people to wear it,” explains Wangtrakuldee.
An alternative to disposable PPE
Since the pandemic began, AmorSui has diversified its product offerings. “We moved with the demand of the market for the medical stuff,” says Wangtrakuldee. This move means she’s now competing with single-use PPE such as plastic aprons. “80% of PPE is disposable,” she says. “What happens to the stuff you throw away? It’s a biohazard so they sit in a land fill.”
A recent study looked at the environmental impact of PPE used in England during the first six months of the pandemic. It found that PPE production and use was responsible for more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions; the worst offenders were gloves, aprons and face shields. By way of comparison, a hardwood tree absorbs roughly 1 tonne of carbon dioxide over the course of 40 years.
Along with the serious issue of sustainability comes the same problem as before. “Disposable PPE isn’t made to fit women,” Wangtrakuldee says. “It’s just not that effective or protective.”
Wangtrakuldee is currently working on a fabric medical gown to replace disposable plastic aprons used by hospital staff. She’s developing a product that can offer guaranteed protection for at least 100 washes. “We test them scientifically in the lab so we’re sure it will replace 100 of these plastic aprons,” she says.
That means testing that the product can continue to effectively repel blood and other bodily fluids after going through the laundry 100 times over. “We do those impact tests and see how much it can take and how much protection it can give,” she explains. In addition to testing the physical qualities of the material, Wangtrakuldee is also developing software systems in anticipation of the, “Oh, how many washes does this item have left?” problem. By building a digital tracking system for the laundering facility, they can measure and keep track of that, so that hospitals don’t inadvertently end up using PPE that is past its use-by date.
“I’m still a scientist at heart,” says Wangtrakuldee. “I’m focusing on improving textile innovation and the protection of women working in laboratories and hospitals.”
Article by Benjamin Plackett