{"id":1230,"date":"2021-08-30T12:48:03","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T19:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/wordpress\/?p=1230"},"modified":"2025-08-01T09:48:57","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T16:48:57","slug":"the-newest-disease-detection-tool-for-covid-and-beyond-poop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/?p=1230","title":{"rendered":"The newest disease detection tool for COVID and beyond: poop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since reopening campus at the University of California-San Diego last summer, university officials have relied on the tried-and-true public health strategies of testing and contact tracing. But they have also added a new tool to their arsenal: excrement.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

That tool alerted researchers to about 85% of cases in dorms before they were diagnosed, according to a soon-to-be published study<\/a>, said Rob Knight, a professor of pediatrics and computer science and engineering who helped create the campus\u2019s wastewater testing program.<\/span><\/p>\n

When covid is detected in sewage, students, staffers and faculty members are tested, which has allowed the school to identify and isolate infected individuals who aren\u2019t yet showing symptoms \u2014 potentially stopping outbreaks in their tracks.<\/span><\/p>\n

UC-San Diego\u2019s testing program is among hundreds of efforts around California and the nation to turn waste into valuable health data. From Fresno, California, to Portland, Maine, universities, communities and businesses are monitoring human excrement for signs of covid.<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers have high hopes for this sludgy new data stream, which they say can alert public health officials to trends in infections and doesn\u2019t depend on individuals getting tested. And because people excrete virus in feces before they show symptoms, it can serve as an early warning system for outbreaks.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds the practice so promising that it has created a federal database of wastewater samples, transforming raw data into valuable information for local health departments. The program is essentially creating a public health tool in real time, experts say, one that could have a range of uses beyond the current global pandemic, including tracking other infectious diseases and germs\u2019 resistance to antibiotics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe think this can really provide valuable data, not just for covid, but for a lot of diseases,\u201d said Amy Kirby, a microbiologist leading the CDC effort.<\/span><\/p>\n

The virus that causes covid infects many types of cells in the body, including those in the respiratory tract and gut. The virus\u2019s genetic signature, viral RNA, makes its way into feces, and typically shows up in poop days before symptoms start.<\/span><\/p>\n

At UC-San Diego and other campuses, researchers take samples flowing from individual buildings, capturing such granular data that they can often deduce the number of infected people living or working there. But in most other settings, because of privacy concerns and resource constraints, testing is done on a much larger scale, with the goal of tracking trends over time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Samples are drawn from wastewater, which is what comes out of our sewer pipes, or sludge, the solids that have settled out of the wastewater. They are typically extracted mechanically or by a human with a dipper on the end of a rod.<\/span><\/p>\n

When researchers in Davis, California, saw the viral load rise in several neighborhood sewage streams in July, they sent out text message alerts and hung signs on the doors of 3,000 homes recommending that people get tested.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before the pandemic, testing sewage to identify and ward off illness in the U.S. was largely limited to academic use. Israel used it to stave off a polio outbreak in 2013, and some communities in the U.S. were sampling sewage before the pandemic to figure out what kinds of opioids people in their communities were using, a service offered by the company Biobot<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But when covid hit the U.S. amid political chaos and a shortage of tests, local governments scrambled for any information they could get on the virus.<\/span><\/p>\n

In rural Lake County, California, health officials had identified a handful of cases by sending nurses out to look for infected people. They were sure there were more but couldn\u2019t get their hands on tests to prove it, so in spring 2020 they signed up for a free sewage testing program run by Biobot, which pivoted to covid testing as the pandemic took off and now is charging to test in K-12 schools, office buildings and nursing homes, in addition to local governments and universities, said Mariana Matus, CEO and co-founder of the company.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since reopening campus at the University of California-San Diego last summer, university officials have relied on the tried-and-true public health strategies of testing and contact tracing. But they have also<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1539,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions\/1539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlab.ucsd.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}