Biobot Analytics, a startup that analyzes wastewater to gain insights into public health, has begun requesting sewage samples from wastewater treatment facilities across the U.S. to test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19.
The company’s technology, developed by CEO Mariana Matus PhD ’18 during her time at MIT in partnership with Newsha Ghaeli, then a research fellow in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, has been geared toward estimating drug consumption in communities since its founding in 2017.
Biobot uses a proprietary device to gather representative samples of sewage, then ships those samples to its scientists for near-real time testing. Samples can be used to track opioid use, nutrition, environmental contaminants, antibiotic resistance, and the spread of infectious diseases. The resulting insights can be used to understand the health and well-being of small communities or large cities.
In the company’s Covid-19 testing program, which it launched pro bono in collaboration with researchers at MIT, Harvard, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the teams will process sewage samples from treatment facilities across the U.S., then use a laboratory technique known as a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction to determine the presence of SARS-CoV-2.
The collaborators believe the program could complement existing testing methods in addition to helping guide community reponses, measure the effectiveness of interventions, and provide an early warning for re-emergence of the outbreak.
Biobot Analytics to Track COVID-19 in Sewage Pro Bono
Repurposing analytics it used to produce data on the opioid epidemic, Biobot is offering a pro bono water testing program to contribute data to the health community’s growing understanding of the pandemic.
Biobot Analytics 26 March 2020 https://news.mit.edu/2020/mit-companies-covid-19-0326
Biobot Analytics, a startup that analyzes wastewater to gain insights into public health, has begun requesting sewage samples from wastewater treatment facilities across the U.S. to test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19.
The company’s technology, developed by CEO Mariana Matus PhD ’18 during her time at MIT in partnership with Newsha Ghaeli, then a research fellow in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, has been geared toward estimating drug consumption in communities since its founding in 2017.
Biobot uses a proprietary device to gather representative samples of sewage, then ships those samples to its scientists for near-real time testing. Samples can be used to track opioid use, nutrition, environmental contaminants, antibiotic resistance, and the spread of infectious diseases. The resulting insights can be used to understand the health and well-being of small communities or large cities.
In the company’s Covid-19 testing program, which it launched pro bono in collaboration with researchers at MIT, Harvard, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the teams will process sewage samples from treatment facilities across the U.S., then use a laboratory technique known as a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction to determine the presence of SARS-CoV-2.
The collaborators believe the program could complement existing testing methods in addition to helping guide community reponses, measure the effectiveness of interventions, and provide an early warning for re-emergence of the outbreak.
How many people are infected with Covid-19? Sewage suggests that number is much higher than officially confirmed
TL;DR: In an area with 446 reported cases, our sewage-based method estimates up to 115,000.
Estimating the true number of COVID-19 cases is extremely challenging. Counting confirmed clinical cases provides an important view into the scope of this pandemic, but case counts are a dramatic underestimate due to limited access to clinical testing. Moreover, asymptomatic patients or those with mild symptoms may never seek out testing in the first place, but they are potentially still contagious.
SARS-CoV-2 is shed in stool and has been detected in sewage in the U.S. by our team, and in the Netherlands by the KWR Research Institute.
Sewage suggests that a much larger number of people are infected with Covid-19.
Yesterday our team published in medRxiv the first study to estimate the number of people infected with Covid-19 based on the levels of SARS-CoV-2 quantified in sewage. We collected sewage samples from a large metropolitan area in the state of Massachusetts. On March 25, the area represented by the sample had approximately 446 confirmed cases of Covid-19. Based on our sewage analysis, we estimate that up to 115,000 people are infected and shedding the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Our laboratory protocols were validated to quantify SARS-CoV-2 in sewage
Our detailed laboratory protocols have been made available open source to the scientific community on our website . . .
Beyond our own technical limitations, there are possible explanations why sewage is giving a higher number of infected people, as compared to confirmed cases:
- People with mild symptoms may not go to the hospital, or get tested,
- There is growing evidence that Covid-19 could have a large asymptomatic population,
- Limited access to clinical testing, and
- A lag in reporting confirmed cases.
Next steps to make our Covid-19 case estimation more accurate.
Our next step to make our Covid-19 case estimation model more accurate is to model the person-to-person variability in SARS-CoV-2 shedding in stool. Our team is already in conversation with other academic groups tackling this issue. Kudos to academic collaboration!
Sewage samples collected from geographical areas with different rates of Covid-19 infection will also make our modeling more accurate. We will be announcing our campaign shortly. For more information, sign up at www.biobot.io/covid19
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