RCN: Wastewater Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 and Emerging Public Health Threats

持续的COVID-19大流行仍然是对国家和全球公共卫生的紧迫威胁。废水监测（WWS）已成为监测和跟踪COVID-19在社区传播和传播的现有临床工具的一个多功能补充平台。WSS的基本前提是，从未经处理的废水样品中提取微生物和病毒生物标志物的检测和定量可用于监测传染性病原体（如SARS-CoV-2病毒及其变体）的发病、传播和社区传播。该研究协调网络（RCN）的总体目标是支持将WWS作为公共卫生监测工具的大型从业人员和利益相关者社区。为了推进这一目标，该RCN的核心研究人员及其国家/国际合作伙伴将整合他们的专业知识并利用他们的资源来解决WSS中的关键知识差距和需求，包括改进分析和抽样方法，以及研究人员、从业人员和公共卫生利益相关者之间更有效的协作、沟通和信息共享协议/工具。该项目的成功完成将通过开发和传播新的工具和协议来造福社会，以支持使用WWS监测SARS-CoV-2和其他病原体，包括那些能够引起未来大流行的病原体的大型从业人员社区。通过劳动力发展，包括指导圣母大学和霍华德大学的两名博士后研究人员，将为社会带来额外的好处。美国在2019冠状病毒病大流行期间使用废水监测（WSS）取得了早期成功，从而建立了国家废水监测系统。尽管WWS的使用为SARS-CoV-2的传播和传播提供了关键数据和有价值的见解，但要从社区废水监测项目收集的数据分析中进行定量估计、预测和提出可行的公共卫生建议，还有很多工作要做。这个NSF研究协调网络（RCN）将解决这些关键的知识差距。RCN建立在以前NSF EAGER奖的成就之上，该奖项建立了一个由来自学术界、政府机构、非政府组织和工业界的WWS研究人员和实践者组成的网络。新的RCN将通过实施五项协同活动来推进其研究、教育和劳动力发展目标，包括1)每月系列研讨会，2)每季专题研讨会，3)开发社区主导的关于WWS科学状况的“Wiki”，4)年度废水监测培训训练营，以及5)由研究人员、从业人员和公共卫生决策者参加的年度虚拟RCN会议。通过这一奖励，RCN的研究人员及其合作伙伴将促进和促进研究人员、从业人员、公共卫生政策和决策者之间的协作与交流，以推进下一代世界卫生网站，以防备和预防大流行病。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic remains an urgent national and global threat to public health. Wastewater surveillance (WWS) has emerged as a versatile and complementary platform to existing clinical tools for monitoring and tracking the spread and transmission of COVID-19 in communities. The basic premise of WSS is that the detection and quantification of microbial and viral biomarkers extracted from samples of untreated wastewater can be used to monitor the onset, spread and community transmission of infectious pathogens such as the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants. The overarching goal of this Research Coordination Network (RCN) is to support the large community of practitioners and stakeholders that employ WWS as a public health monitoring tool. To advance this goal, the core investigators of this RCN and their national/international partners will integrate their expertise and leverage their resources to address critical knowledge gaps and needs in WSS including improved analytical and sampling methods and more effective collaboration, communication and information sharing protocols/tools among researchers, practitioners, and public health stakeholders. The successful completion of this project will benefit society through the development and dissemination of new tools and protocols to support the large community of practitioners that employ WWS to monitor SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens, including those capable of causing future pandemics. Additional benefits to society will be achieved through workforce development including the mentoring of two post-doctoral research fellows at the University of Notre Dame and Howard University. Early success in the use of wastewater surveillance (WSS) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States has led to the establishment of a National Wastewater Surveillance System. Although the use of WWS has provided critical data and valuable insight into the spread and transmission of SARS-CoV-2, much work remains to be done to enable quantitative estimates, predictions, and actionable public health recommendations from the analysis of the data collected during a community wastewater surveillance program. This NSF Research Coordination Network (RCN) will address these critical knowledge gaps. The RCN builds upon the accomplishments of a previous NSF EAGER award that established a network of WWS researchers and practitioners from academia, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and industry. The new RCN will advance its research, education, and workforce development goals through the implementation of five synergistic activities including 1) Monthly seminar series, 2) Quarterly topical workshops, 3) Development of a community-led ‘Wiki’ on the state of the science of WWS, 4) Annual wastewater surveillance training bootcamp, and 5) Annual virtual RCN conference with researchers, practitioners, and public health decision-makers. Through this award, the RCN investigators and their partners will facilitate and promote collaboration and communication among researchers, practitioners, and public health policy and decision-makers to advance next generation WWS for pandemic preparedness and prevention.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.