Same hospitals. Same care. 58% fewer infections.
In 2013, researchers ran a clinical trial in intensive care units across three US hospitals. In some rooms, they replaced high-touch items with copper-alloy versions: bed rails, call buttons, IV poles. Those rooms had 58% fewer hospital-acquired infections than standard rooms.
Most people read that as a curiosity. I read it as a microbiologist who has spent over 20 years studying how microbes survive, adapt and spread. And as someone who grew up next to a metal factory.
This is the story of how those two worlds met, and why I started Cuveon.
Twenty years in the lab
I started my PhD in microbiology in 2003 at CSIR-CIMAP, India’s Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, and completed it in 2009. In early 2010 I moved to Portugal and joined the Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica (ITQB NOVA) for enzyme research. Six months later I moved to the Instituto Superior de Agronomia, University of Lisbon, to work in food microbiology. I wanted research that connected more directly to people’s lives, and food safety did exactly that. I stayed as a postdoctoral researcher until 2019, then worked there as faculty and researcher until 2024. My focus throughout was microbial behaviour and antimicrobial strategies.
Lab work teaches you humility about microbes. They are small, fast and very good at surviving. A bacterial population can double in about 20 minutes under good conditions. Give it a warm, damp surface and a steady supply of hands, and it will find a way.
The lab also teaches you discipline. A result isn’t a result until it replicates. A claim isn’t a claim until the data supports it. That habit stayed with me when I left academia. It shapes everything Cuveon does.
Growing up around metal
My family runs MalacWare, a metal products manufacturer in India. I grew up with the sound of cutting, polishing and finishing. I learned early that metals are not interchangeable. Two sheets can look identical and behave completely differently. Composition, finish and processing change everything.
That background is now Cuveon’s advantage. We don’t buy unknown stock and resell it. We own the factory, so we control the material from sheet to finished product. Our R&D and testing happen in Portugal, against EU requirements.
In the lab, I thought like a scientist. At home, I saw how things get made at scale. For years those two worlds ran in parallel. Copper is where they finally met.
An old metal with a modern evidence base
Copper’s reputation is ancient. The Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Egyptian medical text, is often cited as recording copper’s use to sterilise wounds and drinking water. In India, storing water overnight in copper vessels is a practice passed down for generations. I grew up with it.
Tradition is not evidence. But in this case, science caught up.
In 2008, the US Environmental Protection Agency registered hundreds of copper alloys as antimicrobial materials. That made copper the first solid surface material to receive this kind of registration there.
In 2012, a study in the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition tested the Indian water-storage practice directly. Water contaminated with diarrhoea-causing bacteria was stored in copper pots for 16 hours at room temperature. The bacteria dropped to undetectable levels.
In 2020, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine compared how long the COVID-19 virus stayed infectious on different surfaces. On plastic and stainless steel, it lasted up to three days. On copper, no viable virus was detected after four hours.
The mechanism is called contact killing. When a microbe lands on copper, copper ions attack its outer membrane, generate oxidative stress and damage its DNA. A useful way to picture it: a disinfectant spray is a single wave that washes over a surface and is gone. Copper is a tide that never stops coming in. It keeps working between cleanings, without being reapplied.
Why Cuveon is science-first
Here is the uncomfortable part. Copper attracts a lot of hype. Search for copper products online and you will find bold promises with no data behind them.
That hurts everyone. It makes buyers sceptical. It makes the real evidence look like marketing.
Cuveon takes the opposite approach. Performance depends on details most sellers never mention. Pure copper, such as C11000 at 99.9% copper, behaves differently from alloys. Some alloying elements, like nickel, can reduce copper ion release, and nickel is also a regulated contact allergen in the EU. Surface finish matters too. In our own lab work, surface treatment changed how much copper a surface releases.
So we test. We characterise our materials with independent laboratories. We say what the data shows and stop there. When a test is still in progress, we say so.
Ancient metal. Modern protection. The second half only counts if you can prove it.
What comes next
Cuveon develops copper surfaces and products for places where many hands touch the same things. Municipalities, care homes, schools, hotels. We do our R&D and design in Portugal and manufacture through our own facility, so we control the material from sheet to finished product.
This blog is where I’ll share what I know. How copper works. Why alloy choice matters. Where microbes travel in public spaces. What the evidence supports, and what it doesn’t.
If you manage facilities, buy for public spaces, or simply want to understand this material better, follow along. Read the science behind our work at cuveon.pt/science-of-copper, and follow Cuveon on LinkedIn for the next post.
Mahesh, PhD in Microbiology, founder of Cuveon
References
- van Doremalen N, et al. Aerosol and surface stability of SARS-CoV-2 as compared with SARS-CoV-1. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:1564–1567.
- Sudha VBP, et al. Storing drinking-water in copper pots kills contaminating diarrhoeagenic bacteria. J Health Popul Nutr. 2012;30(1):17–21.
- Salgado CD, et al. Copper surfaces reduce the rate of healthcare-acquired infections in the intensive care unit. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2013;34(5):479–486.
- Grass G, Rensing C, Solioz M. Metallic copper as an antimicrobial surface. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2011;77(5):1541–1547.
- Dollwet HHA, Sorenson JRJ. Historic uses of copper compounds in medicine. Trace Elements in Medicine. 1985;2(2):80–87.
- US EPA. Registration of antimicrobial copper alloys, 2008.