A wastewater biosensor enabling detailed COVID-19 population surveillance.

废水生物传感器可实现详细的 COVID-19 人群监测。

• 批准号: BB/V017209/1
• 负责人: Anastasia Callaghan
• 金额: $ 59.37万
• 依托单位: University of Portsmouth
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FV017209%2F1
• 关键词: wastewater; biosensor; enabling; detailed; COVID

The UK Government is basing its response to the Covid-19 pandemic on scientific evidence and detailed analysis. For example, the COVID19 National Testing Strategy emphasises the critical importance of robust population-wide surveillance programmes (pillar 4) to understand the rate of infection, and how the virus is spreading across the country. This knowledge directly informs critical decision making and pillar 4 is currently reliant on a recently initiated mass population testing programme using weekly/monthly swab testing of up to 300,000 people. This approach is not only invasive and resource intensive, but it also entirely reliant on public compliance, exceptionally expensive (> £125m per annum on public incentives alone) and measuring <0.5% of the population, offers only limited geographical resolution. In contrast, wastewater surveillance has previously been used to detect and mitigate disease outbreaks and recent research has evidenced that SARS-CoV-2 is excreted into the wastewater system, highlighting an easy to access sample source which could yield real-time geographically detailed population level information of COVID-19 prevalence. RT-PCR analysis of wastewater to detect SARS-CoV-2 is possible in the laboratory, but operating this approach regularly at scale across the UKs network of wastewater sites is exceptionally resource intensive. A simple SARS-CoV-2 wastewater monitoring device that can be used by current site personnel, or incorporated into on-site automated wastewater sampling systems, would offer a cost-effective unparalleled source of detailed data on COVID-19 prevalence. Excitingly, this could provide a robust and enduring real-time warning system of local hot spots, as well as a rich dataset from which geographically specific community-level Governmental policies can be determined, future peaks can be detected early and the effectiveness of a large-scale vaccine delivery and countermeasure programmes monitored.Co-designed with industry partners, this grant aims to prove the concept of a SARS-CoV-2 biosensor as a wastewater monitoring device and demonstrate a simple working prototype operating on real wastewater samples. The ability to rapidly deliver a simple working prototype is supported by the high maturity of the underpinning science (the biosensor system builds on previous BBSRC/EPSRC investment) and the project's direct access to The University of Portsmouth's unique Environmental Technology Field Station (ETFS). The ETFS offers research facilities, wastewater samples and appropriate processing technology at a fully-operational wastewater-works. Industry partners are excited about this work and will be actively engaged in the project, particularly the prototype development stage. They are keen to support rapid exploitation and the envisaged pathway to UK impact as a whole, and the realisation of the full benefit, is through the deployment of ~18,000 SARS-CoV-2 monitoring devices across the UK's network of wastewater sites.Looking to the future, the broader application of the monitoring device is enormous. Not only could it be adapted for use on wastewater systems in less-developed countries, but the biosensor system could be altered to respond to viral mutations or other emerging viral threats. Further work would allow it to be deployed to support wider environmental monitoring applications or as a simple detection/diagnostic tool.

英国政府对新冠肺炎大流行的应对是以科学证据和详细分析为基础的。例如，《covid - 19国家检测战略》强调了强有力的全民监测规划（支柱4）的重要性，以了解感染率以及病毒如何在全国传播。这一知识直接影响关键决策，支柱4目前依赖于最近启动的大规模人口检测规划，使用每周/每月对多达30万人进行拭子检测。这种方法不仅是侵入性的和资源密集型的，而且完全依赖于公众的遵守，非常昂贵（仅公共激励每年就高达1.25亿英镑），而且测量不到0.5%的人口，只能提供有限的地理解决方案。相比之下，废水监测以前被用于检测和缓解疾病暴发，最近的研究证明，SARS-CoV-2被排泄到废水系统中，这突显了一个易于获取的样本来源，可以获得COVID-19流行情况的实时地理详细人口水平信息。在实验室中可以对废水进行RT-PCR分析以检测SARS-CoV-2，但在英国的废水站点网络中定期大规模操作这种方法是非常资源密集型的。一个简单的SARS-CoV-2废水监测设备，可由现场人员使用，或集成到现场自动化废水采样系统中，将提供一个具有成本效益的、无与伦比的关于COVID-19流行情况的详细数据来源。令人兴奋的是，这可以提供一个强大和持久的当地热点实时预警系统，以及一个丰富的数据集，从中可以确定地理上特定的社区一级政府政策，可以及早发现未来的高峰，并监测大规模疫苗交付和对策规划的有效性。该资助与行业合作伙伴共同设计，旨在证明SARS-CoV-2生物传感器作为废水监测设备的概念，并展示在真实废水样品上运行的简单工作原型。快速交付简单工作原型的能力得到了基础科学的高度成熟（生物传感器系统建立在BBSRC/EPSRC之前的投资基础上）和项目直接访问朴茨茅斯大学独特的环境技术现场站（ETFS）的支持。污水排放计划提供研究设施、污水样本和适当的处理技术，在一个全面运作的污水处理厂。行业合作伙伴对这项工作感到兴奋，并将积极参与该项目，特别是原型开发阶段。他们热衷于支持快速开发和设想的英国整体影响途径，并通过在英国污水处理站点网络中部署约18,000台SARS-CoV-2监测设备来实现全部效益。展望未来，监控设备的广阔应用空间是巨大的。它不仅可以用于欠发达国家的废水系统，而且可以改变生物传感器系统以应对病毒突变或其他新出现的病毒威胁。进一步的工作将使它能够用于支持更广泛的环境监测应用，或作为一种简单的检测/诊断工具。