BOSTON — Three students at the College of the Holy Cross and a high school sophomore at Bishop Brady High School in New Hampshire are doing their part to help fight the coronavirus pandemic.
The group of cousins created a hand sanitizer that lasts hours longer then the conventional type.
“It forms a covenant bond to the epithetical cells on the outside of your skin and it binds there so even if you’re washing your hands with soap and water it will stay there,” said Paul Wiley, a Holy Cross senior.
They worked with the company Smart Common Sense to fully develop the hand sanitizer.
“You can kind of imagine it as a bed of spikes on your hands and this prevents any bacteria and viruses from re-growing,” said Luke Knox, a Holy Cross sophomore.
“The long lasting part really depends on what you’re doing throughout the day," said Paul. “So let’s say you’re in college and you’re studying and typing on the keyboard, it will work longer than if you were working out in the gym.”
Paul studied chemistry at Holy Cross. His sister Mary Anne and cousin Luke Knox are sophomores studying economics.
The youngest Wiley brother, Matthew is a sophomore at Bishop Brady High School in Concord, NH. They say they’ve been entrepreneurs since they were little. They have their own company called Wilox, Innovations Today for a Healthier Tomorrow.
“From a very young age we figured out this is what we want to do and from when we figured out we can help people and that motivation just sky rocketed,” Knox said.
Sky rocketed is right.
After the Wiley’s parents contracted COVID-19 working as a nurse and doctor in a local hospital due to lack of PPE, the siblings and cousin duo started making their own face shields to donate to healthcare workers. They currently have an assembly line producing the shields in their basement.
“We have a laser integrator which is kind of the opposite of a 3D printer so instead of adding material it takes away material,” Matthew said.
They know dedicating so much time to fight the pandemic isn’t the norm among people their age but they say it’s the least they can do.
“We have personally felt the effects the coronavirus has for a person that we love and especially for people who are fighting every day for people’s lives to get better," said Mary Anne Wiley. "So we decided we’re home, ‘Why not? Let’s do something.’”
“To be able to help out with what all of them on what they are doing is just amazing,” Matthew said.
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