The Lighting Research Center (LRC) is    part of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute    of Troy, N.Y., and is the leading    university-based research center    devoted to lighting. The LRC offers the    world's premier graduate education in    lighting, including one- and two-year    master's programs and a Ph.D.    program. Since 1988 the LRC has built    an international reputation as a reliable    source for objective information about    lighting technologies, applications, and    products. The LRC also provides    training programs for government    agencies, utilities, contractors, lighting    designers, and other lighting    professionals. Visit

      Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) holds great promise for our future health, according to a study recently published     in the British medical journal, The Lancet.

      The study examined how UV light can be used to sterilize air-conditioning systems, where dark and moist conditions can      allow mold, bacteria and other microbes to thrive.

       Dick Menzies, an associate professor at Montreal Chest Institute at McGill University in Canada led the research. He and      his colleagues conducted their study for one year in three large Montreal-based office buildings, where more than 750      people worked.

       They discovered that:

        UV light killed microbes in cooling systems Bacteria, fungi and endotoxins were reduced 99 percent Workers' general      symptoms decreased 20 percent when the UV lights were on Nonsmoking workers and those with allergies benefited      most  Respiratory complaints dropped 40 percent Ultimately, the McGill researchers concluded that the use of UVGI      systems could help 4 million workers in North America avoid the effects of "sick building syndrome."

    These findings follow those of a team from St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers in New York City who, working with the      Lighting Research Center, discovered that UVGI luminaries "can be effective fore disease prevention, and may help in      combating bioterrorism."

     To read more about the LRC's work, which focused on reducing the transmission of tuberculosis, click here.