Where Our Far-UVC Program Stands One Year After the Blueprint

It’s been a year since the publication of the Blueprint for Far-UVC. Recent outbreaks, including hantavirus and Ebola, underscore the need for sustained investment in preparedness for future pandemics. As the biological threat landscape continues to evolve, with potential threats from foreign actors or advanced AI capabilities, preparedness efforts must evolve to keep pace. That includes better understanding technologies that may help reduce infectious airborne pathogen concentrations, including potential air treatment interventions like far-UVC.

While far-UVC remains a promising tool to mitigate the spread of airborne pathogens, the path to broader deployment relies on answering key questions about its safety, effectiveness, and real-world use. To help address those questions, Blueprint has funded research, carried out with collaborators and research partners, to build the evidence base needed to better understand far-UVC’s potential role in preparedness for future biological threats. 

Achieving the potential of far-UVC

The Blueprint for Far-UVC identified a series of research areas that, if advanced, could help inform decisions on how far-UVC could be used as an air treatment technology for pathogen mitigation. To date, Blueprint has grouped these into three areas that we believe are especially important for building shared understanding across researchers, industry, policymakers, and potential users. These areas include:

• Effectiveness: What levels of far-UVC exposure are needed to meaningfully reduce the spread of pathogens in different settings?
• Safety: What safety considerations need to be addressed for occupied spaces where people may be exposed to levels of far-UVC needed to inactivate pathogens?
• Real world deployment: How can far-UVC be practically implemented in real-world environments? 

The following is a non-exhaustive overview of funded initiatives in the far-UVC portfolio. 

Program	Question it answers	Status
Effectiveness: How much far-UVC do we need, and can we measure it consistently?
FIR-Protocol	Can we design clinical trials rigorous enough to prove a real-world effect?	Ongoing
Human-to-animal tuberculosis (TB) study	Can far-UVC reduce airborne disease spread in a human-to-guinea pig transmission model?	Ongoing
DEMIST	How susceptible is TB to far-UVC in controlled chamber studies?	Ongoing
EXHALE	How well does far-UVC work on human-generated respiratory aerosols?	Ongoing
Single-droplet inactivation	Can we measure k-values droplet by droplet to cut variability?	Complete; publication pending
Fluence-normalized test chamber	Can dose-response testing be standardized across labs?	Ongoing
Safety: Is an effective dose also safe for people and indoor environments?
BRIDGE	Does far-UVC cause eye discomfort, at what dose, and why?	One ongoing, one complete project; publication pending
SCOUT	Does far-UVC create harmful indoor air byproducts?	Ongoing
ASHRAE 241 ozone modeling	How does ozone added by far-UVC compare to increasing outdoor air ventilation?	Ongoing
Real World Deployment: How can we deploy far-UVC safely and effectively in real world spaces?
Deployment Scenario Modeling	How do you deploy far-UVC to balance safety and efficacy considerations?	Ongoing; two papers published to date

Blueprint’s Far-UVC Effectiveness Portfolio

There is a significant body of evidence that illustrates that far-UVC can inactivate a wide range of pathogens. However, additional research is needed to understand how much far-UVC is needed to provide sufficient protection in occupied indoor spaces. This is important because the amount of far-UVC needed in a given space will affect both occupants’ exposure levels and the economic feasibility of deploying far-UVC in that space. Our portfolio is designed to answer these key questions about effectiveness through a variety of approaches and experimental systems, with the overall goal of informing broader guidance on the potential use and deployment of far-UVC in the future. 

Far-UVC for Infection Reduction Protocol (FIR-Protocol)

The strongest test of the utility of far-UVC is a sufficiently powered randomized controlled clinical trial (RCT) that evaluates the impact of far-UVC lamps and their ability to mitigate real world indoor pathogen transmission. These kinds of interventional studies for airborne pathogen mitigation are notoriously challenging to design and execute and often are underpowered and offer inconclusive results. To help inform the development of an RCT for far-UVC, Blueprint has decided to fund the development of several clinical trial protocols from which high-quality future RCTs can be executed. Multiple have been identified to work on these protocols, with the goal of finalizing them by fall 2026. 

Human-to-Animal TB Transmission Study in South Africa

Broader far-UVC adoption likely depends on demonstrating reduced infections from a human-transmitted airborne pathogen, not only reductions in viable pathogens in the air. This study is centered on answering a core question in the field: how well do different amounts of far-UVC prevent the spread of tuberculosis from real human patients? 

Historical research conducted at the Airborne Infections Research (AIR) facility in South Africa helped establish the precedent for testing ultraviolet germicidal irradiation as a tool to reduce tuberculosis transmission. Blueprint is now building on this foundational research by investigating the potential of far-UVC to do the same. In 2025, under the leadership of Drs. Ed Nardell and Veronica Ueckermann, Blueprint helped to stand up far-UVC research at the AIR facility. Similar to the historical study, this study tests whether different amounts of far-UVC light can prevent the transmission of TB infection from human patients to an animal sentinel model. 

Understanding far-UVC’s ability to prevent TB transmission is important as these results would demonstrate its potential against a (likely) difficult-to-inactivate pathogen with a significant global health burden. Direct infection-reduction data could also provide some of the strongest evidence for far-UVC’s real-world value, and evaluating TB transmission offers a rigorous way to test that potential. This study is ongoing and generating data, with publication and presentation by the team expected in the near future.

Determining and Extrapolating MIcrobial Inactivation and Susceptibility of Tuberculosis (DEMIST)

While the human-to-animal TB transmission study has strong potential to generate impactful data, it could be difficult to understand how much of the results comes from TB’s innate susceptibility to far-UVC, or some other experimental factor related to the facility or transmission of TB from the human patients. To address this gap, DEMIST funds chamber-based laboratory research to directly measure TB’s far-UVC susceptibility. 

By supporting three parallel projects led by three different teams, Blueprint aims to hedge against experimental variability. Together, these results will help contextualize the human-to-animal transmission study and establish a useful benchmark for evaluating far-UVC’s effectiveness. These studies are ongoing, with data expected in the near future. 

EXposure of Human Aerosols to far-UVC Light for pathogen Elimination (EXHALE) 

A key gap in far-UVC research is understanding how efficacious far-UVC is at inactivating pathogens in real human respiratory aerosols, rather than lab-generated versions. The composition and characteristics of real respiratory aerosols can vary greatly from experimental substitutes and there are plausible reasons why this might improve or reduce the efficacy of far-UVC in real world use. To address this question, Blueprint has funded two parallel studies evaluating far-UVC’s effectiveness at inactivating pathogens contained within respiratory aerosols produced by individuals with active viral infections inside a chamber. These studies are ongoing and are expected to help assess how representative other far-UVC experimental models are, while also informing dose targets for potential real-world deployments.

Direct quantification of microbial inactivation in aerosol droplets

Another challenge in evaluating far-UVC’s effectiveness is that reported k-values, otherwise known as microbial susceptibility constants, can vary substantially across research groups and experiments. There are a variety of potential reasons for this, including differences in test chamber design and methodology. One potential solution to address this variability is to use systems that can standardize individual aerosol droplets, making k-value measurements more consistent. Blueprint has funded a study to test this capability on both bacterial and viral models. This work is concluded and is being prepared for presentation and publication.

Hardware to standardize susceptibility test methods

Once the real world effectiveness of far-UVC is established against a specific airborne pathogen, the question is how this translates to other potential pathogens of interest. While far-UVC has been shown to inactivate a wide range of pathogens, understanding how an efficacious dose may vary by the pathogen type is important when considering broader deployment against unknown future pathogens. 

Answering this question requires testing a wide range of potential pathogens, but more importantly depends on having a standardized test method that behaves consistently across research groups. One key variable in current testing methodologies is the distribution of far-UVC energy in a given test chamber. Depending on where microbes are located within a chamber and how close they are to the far-UVC source, they may be exposed to different levels of irradiance. To solve this problem, Blueprint has funded an academic group that is developing a test chamber that will be able to provide an even distribution of far-UVC throughout the entire chamber, resulting in a more consistent exposure profile of each aerosol. This work is ongoing, and if successful, could inform a new standardized test protocol to reduce k-value measurement variability and improve high-quality profiling of k-values across different pathogenic organisms.

Blueprint’s Far-UVC Safety Portfolio

The promise of using far-UVC in occupied indoor spaces depends on whether doses that effectively mitigate airborne pathogens are also safe for human exposure. Even if far-UVC performs as expected, broader deployment will be difficult unless the technology is considered safe. Given the importance of this question, several projects are in the early stages of development to address critical questions about its safe use. 

Building Reassurance against eye Irritation and discomfort under Germicidal UV Exposure (BRIDGE)

While far-UVC is generally considered safe at the current dosage guidelines, reports of transient eye discomfort when exposed to far-UVC warrant additional investigation. The BRIDGE program evaluates whether far-UVC causes subjective eye irritation or discomfort, at what dose, and through what mechanism, while also developing noninvasive biomarkers and models to measure these effects. While not designed to be a final and comprehensive assessment of far-UVC’s impact on eye health, this program can inform the basis for follow-up studies to understand far-UVC’s safety profile in regard to eye health. Multiple teams have been funded as part of this research initiative, and their results are forthcoming.

Secondary Chemistry Of far UV Technology (SCOUT Project)

A common concern with the use of far-UVC is its impact on indoor air quality, primarily through the interactions between far-UVC-generated ozone and other molecules present in the built environment. Understanding whether far-UVC generates significant concentrations of harmful byproducts will be important for informing future deployment considerations and potential use cases. To examine this issue, Blueprint has funded an initiative to investigate whether far-UVC contributes to the formation of harmful chemical byproducts in real-world indoor environments. This study remains ongoing, with results expected later in 2026. 

Indoor ozone impacts of achieving ASHRAE Standard 241 with outdoor air versus far-UVC

ASHRAE 241 is an important new standard that establishes minimum clean air requirements to reduce the transmission of airborne disease in indoor spaces. Broadly speaking, it stipulates that during a time of increased transmission risk, more clean air is needed in a building proportional to the occupancy of that space. There are many interventions that can help reach the ASHRAE 241 targets for clean air, including ventilation, filtration, or germicidal ultraviolet light (including far-UVC). When considering the question of how ASHRAE 241 can be reached while balancing the quality of indoor air, ozone is a significant consideration. Using far-UVC to add air cleaning capacity would be expected to generate some ozone. However, depending on the outdoor ozone concentrations, bringing in outdoor air through ventilation can also increase indoor ozone levels. To better understand this tradeoff, Blueprint is funding an expansion of work sponsored by the California Air Resources Board. This work will evaluate far-UVC across different scenarios to better characterize its impact on indoor ozone concentrations when used to meet ASHRAE 241 targets. This work is ongoing and results are expected toward the end of 2026.

Blueprint’s Real-World Deployment Portfolio

The third main area of interest for far-UVC is understanding how it can be deployed safely and effectively in real-world settings. This is the least developed area of Blueprint’s far-UVC portfolio today, but it is central to how the technology can ultimately be used outside controlled research settings. Blueprint is actively scoping additional work in this area and expects to launch more programs over the coming years. 

Deployment Scenario Modeling

Far-UVC may not be the best pathogen mitigation tool for every setting. In a Blueprint-funded classroom modeling study, researchers found that ceiling-mounted far-UVC systems were more effective at reducing airborne pathogen exposure than upper-room or wall-mounted systems, but they also produced small increases in indoor ozone. The study also found that air cleaners could reduce exposure by more than 50% in classrooms when they delivered enough clean air, and that carbon filters could help reduce ozone depending on where they were placed. Together, these findings highlight the need to evaluate far-UVC alongside other air cleaning technologies and to balance disinfection performance with indoor air quality in real-world spaces.

The Future

There is still more to learn before far-UVC can reach its full potential. While additional questions remain, several key initiatives stand out as likely to shape the field in the years ahead, including: 

• Endemic Use Development: If far-UVC is shown to be safe, effective, and practical for broader use, it may have potential applications beyond pandemic preparedness. One important question is whether the technology can help address the ongoing burden of endemic airborne disease. Blueprint is exploring ways to support work that evaluates these potential use cases while recognizing that broader deployment will depend on the evidence generated throughout ongoing studies.  

• The RCT: Without a sufficiently powered RCT, there will remain a major unanswered question about the real world impact of far-UVC. By supporting FIR-Protocol, Blueprint is dedicating resources to answer this question in a way that addresses concerns from the broader community.

• Additional safety work: Several questions related to far-UVC’s safety will be important to answer before  the potential widespread adoption of the technology. These include questions about long-term exposure effects, how far-UVC may impact different subpopulations, and how it can be implemented in ways that are both safe and effective.