As a professor of biological sciences at Cal State San Marcos, Carlos Luna Lopez occasionally is approached by representatives of the scores of biotech companies in the region, seeking his scientific expertise.
Last fall, a biotech startup came to him with an idea for a product that sounded to Luna like one of great timeliness and potential value: a face mask that, rather than passively protecting the user like the N95s we all have become accustomed to, would more actively guard against COVID-19 by dispensing a drug into the user’s system. Luna had done research on drug delivery vehicles on a microscopic scale, so he was the right person to determine for the company if their bright idea was feasible.
During the fall 2021 semester, Luna applied for and received a CSUSM fellowship granting him a partial release from his teaching load to delve into the…
