I-Corps: Passive in situ pathogen concentration device for wastewater-based epidemiology

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发技术，以实现对微生物的有效监测，以确定对人类健康和环境的威胁。这项拟议的技术可以用于废水监测，以预测疾病爆发，从而允许卫生机构部署资源，以遏制一种可以在全球传播的病原体。这项技术将用于设计非侵入性和安全的采样设备，以评估造成废水的社区的健康状况。未来，自主机器人可能会被用来在城市下水道网络内的战略位置部署这种被动采样设备，以实现对病原体流行和传播的更好的地理分辨率。在医院等地实施这项技术可能会使监测细菌中的抗生素耐药基因成为可能，这些细菌会导致难以治疗的医院获得性感染。此外，气候变化会影响自然水体中的微生物负荷和多样性。采样设备可以部署在天然水源甚至公共水池中，以监测微生物种群。使用类似的策略，可以通过对农场或动物园的废水进行采样来监测禽流感等新出现的病原体。这可能会减少全球旅行和气候变化等人为因素造成的威胁。这个i-Corps项目基于开发一种被动采样设备，该设备可以直接部署在水源上，以集中微生物。这项技术最初是为了克服传统废水采样和病毒浓缩方法的几个缺点而开发的。它使用固体底物来捕获和浓缩水源中的微生物。专利解决方案有效地从捕获的微生物中提取遗传物质(DNA或RNA)。初步结果表明，SARS-CoV-2和流感等病毒可以成功浓缩以提取其遗传物质。这项技术将进一步用于建造被动采样设备，在部署在水源时持续安全地捕获微生物。这最大限度地减少了运输和处理潜在危险废水的成本、时间和精力。这些设备的重量不到20克，当需要对疾病爆发进行更细粒度的监测时，可以部署在废水处理厂、建筑物水平管道甚至飞机厕所等水源中。将进行进一步的实验，以测试这些设备在浓缩不同种类微生物(如细菌和真菌)方面的效率。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of technology to enable effective surveillance of microorganisms for identifying threats to human health and the environment. The proposed technology may be used for wastewater surveillance to predict disease outbreaks and thus allow health agencies to deploy resources to contain a pathogen that can spread globally. The technology will be used in the design of non-invasive and safe sampling devices to assess the health of communities that contribute to wastewater. In the future, autonomous robots may be used to deploy such passive sampling devices at strategic locations within city sewer networks to allow finer geographical resolution of pathogen prevalence and spread. Implementing the technology at locations such as hospitals may enable the monitoring of antibiotic resistant genes in bacteria causing hospital-acquired infections that are hard to treat. In addition, climate change can affect the microbial load and diversity in natural water bodies. Sampling devices may be deployed in natural water sources or even public pools to monitor microbial populations. Using a similar strategy, emerging pathogens such as bird flu may be monitored by sampling wastewater from farms or zoos. This may reduce the threat resulting from anthropogenic factors such as global travel and climate change.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a passive sampling device that may be directly deployed at a water source to concentrate microorganisms. The technology was originally developed to overcome several shortcomings of traditional wastewater sampling and virus concentration methods. It uses a solid substrate to capture and concentrate microorganisms from water sources. Proprietary solutions efficiently extract genetic material (DNA or RNA) from the captured microorganisms. Preliminary results demonstrated that viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza may be concentrated successfully to extract their genetic material. The technology will be further used to construct passive sampling devices that continuously and safely capture microorganisms while deployed at a water source. This minimizes the cost, time, and effort to transport and process potentially hazardous wastewater. Weighing less than 20 g, these devices may be deployed in water sources such as wastewater treatment plants, building-level pipes, or even aircraft lavatories when more granular surveillance of disease outbreaks is required. Further experiments will be conducted to test the efficiency of the devices in concentrating different species of microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi.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.