Tracking the COVID-19 Epidemic in Sewage (TRACES)

Wastewater based testing (WBT) holds great promise for cost-effective population surveillance and transmission tracking of SARS-CoV-2 but optimal sampling modalities and protocols are unknown. Taking advantage of a diverse inner city urban campus encompassing undergraduate, postgraduate dorms, research buildings and medical facilities, this project included optimization of WBT surveillance strategies for waste streams at the building level, surrounding sewersheds, and wastewater treatment plants, as well as modeling of case counts using normalized WBT data. Metatranscriptomics approaches were applied to track circulating and emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and to develop point-of-use microfluidics systems for timely WBT.