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

I-Corps项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发技术，以便有效监测微生物，以查明对人类健康和环境的威胁。拟议的技术可用于废水监测，以预测疾病爆发，从而使卫生机构能够部署资源来遏制可以在全球传播的病原体。该技术将用于设计非侵入性和安全的取样装置，以评估产生废水的社区的健康状况。在未来，自主机器人可能会被用于在城市下水道网络的战略位置部署这种被动采样设备，以便对病原体的流行和传播进行更精细的地理分辨率。在医院等地点实施这项技术，可以监测导致难以治疗的医院获得性感染的细菌中的抗生素耐药基因。此外，气候变化还会影响天然水体的微生物负荷和多样性。采样装置可以部署在自然水源或甚至公共水池中，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取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项目是基于一种被动采样装置的开发，这种装置可以直接部署在水源上集中微生物。该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。它使用固体基质从水源中捕获和浓缩微生物。专有的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提取其遗传物质。该技术将进一步用于构建被动采样设备，该设备可以在水源处连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致的监测时，可以部署在废水处理厂、建筑物管道甚至飞机厕所等水源中。将进行进一步的实验，以测试设备在浓缩不同种类的微生物（如细菌和真菌）方面的效率。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 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.