While it is still challenging to prevent the spread of COVID-19, researchers at the University of Miami are using all possible strategies to spread the spread.
That includes using advanced screening to detect SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – in wastewater. Detecting traces of the virus in sewage leaking from campus buildings can provide up to a week ahead of COVID-19 positive test results to warn students and faculty that they should be tested and self-separation before the disease spreads.
Research has shown that people start putting out the virus in their feces and urine before they show signs of COVID-19, so the idea is to use wastewater measurements as an early warning for ar- out potential COVID-19 in the community. “
Helena Solo-Gabriele, Professor, Environmental Engineering, Associate Dean, Research, College of Engineering
Solo-Gabriele has been studying beach and water pollution in South Florida for more than a decade, so she received support from the University’s leadership to lead the group’s effort.
And just a few weeks ago, this team of 40 faculty and staff and students – including Solo-Gabriele co-researchers Stephan Schürer, professor of molecular and cellular physiology at Miller School of Medicine ; and Christopher Mason, associate professor of physiology and biology and computational genomics in computational biofuels, as well as co – director of the WorldQuant Quantitative Prediction Campaign at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City – on strengthened by the news that they had received a large grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with funding starting this month.
The two-year, $ 5 million grant will help expand the University’s own pilot program to detect the virus in wastewater.
With this new funding, the team will also join a consortium formed by the NIH to collect and regulate data from centers across the United States that test wastewater for its use. virus, Schürer said. Therefore, Schürer will work to create data benchmarks and software tools, so that the wastewater figures and related information are stored, compiled and analyzed quickly. This will help scientists link information from a range of sources in a more efficient way, she said.
The researchers are grateful for the increase in funding as the team will now be able to extend and evaluate innovative technologies for collecting, compacting and detecting the virus in water. waste. They will also examine the relationship between the environmental density of the virus and human test results to create models that can predict COVID-19. Finally, led by Mason, they will use next-generation sequence technology to identify SARS-CoV-2 genetic differences, look for novel viruses, and link this data to national and global efforts to monitor emerging pathogens.
Beginning in August 2020, the University began routinely testing students taking personal classes to gain an overview of any COVID-19 transmissions and to help keep track of virus as low as possible. At the same time, a program was also set up for an environmental study of the virus using surface, air and wastewater sampling, led by George Grills, associate director for shared resources at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
As part of this effort, the Solo-Gabriele team began collecting and monitoring the wastewater samples regularly from the University’s three campuses. Now that this team can increase their efforts, said Erin Kobetz, who has led the University’s testing, tracking, and discovery efforts, the data will become even more useful. According to Kobetz, the University hopes to randomly test students in the buildings where they see an increased presence of the virus in the wastewater to help eliminate COVID-19 crashes. whatever may be.
“This is another tool in our arsenal that provides critical information to manage disclosure and revolution risk,” said Kobetz, a trained epidemiologist who is also the University’s vice-provost for research and scholarship. ”It is also remarkable that this team was able to accelerate something they were establishing to support the University’s management of COVID-19 for wider scientific impact. “
Ultimately, Solo-Gabriele hopes to create a primer that they can share with leaders across the country on the best ways to identify the virus in wastewater and how it can be used to warn take promptly about possible diseases. They also hope to offer strategies that communities can use to reduce emissions nearby when they find a spike in wastewater, she said.
The University’s COVID-19 wastewater team includes students and faculty and staff from the College of Engineering, Miller School of Medicine, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University Resources and Operations, Management Risk, Environment Health and Safety, Institute of Data and Computer Science, and Office of Safety and Compliance Miller School. The research team also includes students and faculty and staff from the Department of Psychology and Biophysics and HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.
To mark the level of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, Brian Reding, environmental health and safety officer, will gather, with the help of circulating students and research staff from Sylvester Cancer Centre’s Shared Behavior and Community Research Facility, samples from Community 13 places at the University each week.
The Solo-Gabriele team then shares the sample and sends a portion for sequencing and analysis to Mason – who has established an international consortium for these studies – at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. The other portion is studied at the University. To prepare the wastewater for analysis, samples are collected down to a few microliters. Then, Solo-
Gabriele delivers the focus to Mark Sharkey, an assistant professor of research on infectious diseases, who uses an innovative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method he developed to determine if the virus present in a sample.
The Sharkey method can produce results faster and more efficiently than other methods, Solo-Gabriele noted. Wastewater samples positive for the virus will be analyzed at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Centre’s Onco-Genomics Shared Facility to detect and identify the viral snoring, which will help determine how quickly it can the disease spread, Grills added.
While the team received the shearing in the fall, they are now accelerating activity by collecting more specimens, more frequently, and in several larger locations. This will help get a better representation of where the virus can be found, and how it may have spread, Solo-Gabriele said.
Meanwhile, another member of the team, Naresh Kumar, associate professor of environmental health, is working with Alejandro Mantero, a biostatics research analyst at the University ‘s Institute of Clinical Science and Translation, in addition to Mason, to create an infectious disease model that could predict potential COVID-19 outbreaks, based on wastewater analysis, human test results, and local hospital figures.
The results of this project could help guide University and local leaders to make timely decisions and improve disease spread control efforts around the globe.
“We learn that measuring wastewater is a powerful tool to understand what diseases are in a community and how people contribute to these diseases, not only for COVID-19, but for the health of Because we can use it to monitor a lot of different things [pathogenic] organisms, “Solo-Gabriele said.