Biobot Analytics co-founders, Mariana Matus and Newsha Ghaeli, are analyzing sewage data to help communities detect COVID-19 spread
Matus and Ghaeli originally developed the technology to analyze sewage data for the presence of opioids, with an idea of serving as an early warning system for public health officials as the opioid epidemic ravaged the country. When people go to the bathroom, their fecal matter and urine contain chemical metabolites, viruses and bacteria. Those typically survive the trip to wastewater treatment facilities, where the community’s wastewater ends up being mixed together.
Because a person with a COVID-19 infection will shed the virus within their stool, Biobot developed a way to identify, replicate and measure the concentration of the viral RNA within a given wastewater sample. Right now it takes them around five days to turn around the data. The company aims to refine that model further, as it addresses challenges, such as the fact that different people may have different concentrations of the virus within a stool sample.
Biobot was already looking for more investment capital when the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe, but its technology has a new urgency now, says Ann DeWitt, a general partner at The Engine. “The ability of Mariana and Newsha to really pivot the company, the team, and the technology to address this pandemic was incredibly impressive.”
The field of wastewater epidemiology is relatively new in the United States, and MIT is one of only a handful of universities with expertise in the area. Things are further along in Europe, where a Europe-wide
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