We've got blood tests, we've got nasal swabs,
all kinds of ways to detect the coronavirus,
and now we can add to that mix, poop,
specifically, wastewater.
There's a company called Biobot
that's analyzing this wastewater
to try and look for the coronavirus.
And they've found that in a lot of cases,
the virus is much more widespread
than the more conventional test would show.
So let's head off to Massachusetts
to interview the founders of Biobot.
Would you two mind introducing yourselves,
maybe Mariana first?
My name is Mariana Matus.
I am co-founder and CEO of Biobot Analytics.
My name is Newsha Ghaeli,
and I am co-founder and president at Biobot Analytics.
Your company, the two of you have come up
with a pretty unique way to look at the coronavirus.
I mean, you're talking about sewage
coming from different parts of the country, right?
Correct.
We can detect the virus in wastewater
because people who are infected shed the virus in stool,
and it makes its way into the wastewater infrastructure.
Then wastewater treatment plants collect samples
and send them to us.
Right now, Biobot has a pro bono campaign,
and we are testing about 10% of the US population
on a weekly basis, versus about 1% of the US population
that is being tested through the clinics.
And the results that you've already seen
are pretty striking.
Yeah.
Our first results were gathered
from a large metropolitan region in Massachusetts.
And on the day that the samples were collected,
there were about 450 confirmed clinical cases
in that community.
And what we were able to see via sewage testing
is that there were up to 100,000 people
infected with coronavirus in that catchment area.
So just dramatically more
than what the regular tests were showing?
Yeah, exactly.
There's actually a large asymptomatic population, likely,
or individuals who have very mild symptoms.
and so they're not seeking out testing.
However, they're captured and represented in sewage data,
and so we're seeing them in our tests.
And I know you get a 50-milliliter sample.
How is that representative of an entire city's population?
So, treatment plants,
they can sample the wastewater
as it comes into the treatment plant constantly
through 24 hours to guarantee that we get representation
from every toilet flush that went through that community.
And then from that aggregate sample,
they are taking a small aliquot and sending that to us.
And using that sample,
we measure how much virus was present in the wastewater
with a technique called QPCR,
that looks for the genetic signature of the virus.
Okay.
And you'd already had this company up and running
to look for other, what,
other diseases in wastewater already?
Correct.
We originally were working with the opioid epidemic,
measuring the concentration of different types
of prescription opioids in wastewater
to create better programs.
It's not the most glamorous job, maybe.
What drew you to this field?
I really grew up with hardship,
so I've always been passionate about creating technologies
that help with equity and just bringing better resources
to people who need it.
And the beauty of looking at wastewater as a diagnostic
is that everybody has a voice in the sewer.
You don't need to have the money to go to the doctor.
You don't need to have medical insurance.
As long as your house is connected to the wastewater,
your information is counted,
and we can bring that to create better programming.
What's your vision for how this plays out
over the coming years?
Yeah, our vision is that one day this technology
will be basic infrastructure for every city
and town worldwide.
So we will be constantly screening our populations
for new outbreaks of the novel coronavirus.
And in this next week, two weeks, three weeks,
there's just going to be more and more data
coming out, obviously, from the work you're doing.
All of the facilities that we're working with
really believe that weekly testing is very important.
One of the biggest questions facing government
and decision makers right now is how and when
can we start to safely open up our cities again
and our economies again,
and testing at scale is one of the most critical things
in order to help us get there.
And we're not going to be able to test
every single individual; that's just not realistic.
And so, this type of testing can really be helpful
in making these types of decisions
of scaling back quarantine-style measures
or social distancing.
And so, all of the facilities that we're working with
are sending us weekly samples,
we're giving weekly data back to them,
and, yeah, we're excited to see how that progresses.