ORLANDO, Fla. — A UCF research team plans to change people’s saliva to help reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

The team plans to make saliva thicker with a product similar to a cough drop or thin strip to lower the number of airborne bacteria particles. 

“They float around and get stuck in the HVAC systems or they just linger,” said Michael Kinzel, assistant professor at UCF's department of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

The thicker saliva would make airborne bacteria particles after a cough or sneeze bigger.

“These larger droplets will tend to drop down to the ground rather than transmit to the next person,” said Kareem Ahmed, assistant professor at UCF's department of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

It has potential to cascade down [the number of people who become infected] so maybe it doesn’t become a pandemic,” Kinzel said.

The team received a $200,000 National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research Award to explore the use of corn starch and candy corn to make saliva heavier and sticker. They also tested several products someone could find in a kitchen cupboard to make saliva thicker.

“We’re looking at organic material and we have FDA collaborators on this proposal primarily because we want to get something to use in public quickly,” Ahmed said.

The final product will vary depending on the duration of use.

“If you’re going to the grocery store spending half an hour, a thin strip might be sufficient, compared to a flight, a cough drop [where] might you might need it for several hours,” Ahmed said.

The name of the final product may be “Knight Stick.”

They said the combination of a face mask and their cough drop will help lower social distancing from six feet to just two feet. They’re looking into scaling up their research through the National Academy of Engineering or through government funding with the help of the National Science Foundation.