RAPID: Viral structure-function-activity in the engineered wastewater cycle

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The current global COVID-19 pandemic is caused by SARS-CoV2, a coronavirus. While human coronaviruses are highly infective and responsible for the majority of respiratory tract infections, the novel SARS-CoV2 is particularly virulent. These viruses can survive under a variety of conditions and environments including within human waste streams. Wastewater treatment systems are widely used as a final barrier to protect water bodies from the impacts of human pollution. However, the fate of coronaviruses during the wastewater treatment process is poorly understood. The goal of this RAPID project is to develop a science-based understanding of the fate of SARS-CoV2 and other viruses during the treatment of human waste in wastewater treatment plants. Results of this research will inform the scientific community and relevant stakeholders of the impact of waste treatment on SARS-CoV2, as well as other potential threats and agents. If successful, this approach will provide urgently needed information to help respond to the current global pandemic and form the basis of a global database for future pandemic events. This proposal addresses a current pressing need to understand the abundance, activity and transmission of SARS-CoV2 and other viral determinants in engineered wastewater treatment systems. The emergence of increasingly frequent and especially potent microbial pathogens like SARS-CoV2 presents an urgent challenge to public health. The extremely rapid global spread of SARS-CoV-2 infections as well as an asymptomatic latency period in subjects suggests significant gaps in our understanding of potential reservoirs and transmission pathways of SARS-CoV2. One such reservoir and potential transmission pathway is the engineered wastewater cycle. Wastewater treatment serves to reduce pollution and minimize exposure of human populations to microbiological threats. The goal of this project is to determine if wastewater treatment systems serve as a reservoir in the current COVID-19 pandemic. This will be achieved by conducting a worldwide environmental surveillance study using massively parallel high-throughput systems biology approaches to characterize viral structure-function-activity measures in the engineered wastewater cycle. The results of this study will provide a database of SARS-CoV2 and other viruses in a broad spectrum of waste streams, treatment systems, and disinfection processes. A second aim of this research is to develop -omics based biomarkers and quantitative assays for SARS-CoV2 to track fate in engineered wastewater treatment systems. Successful completion of this research will provide urgently needed information on SARS-CoV2 behavior in the environment that will inform efforts to manage and mitigate the impacts of the global pandemic.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.