Point-of-Collection Sample Pretreatment and Preservation with Porous Super-Absorbent Polymer (PSAP) Beads for Wastewater Surveillance Testing

Wastewater surveillance (WWS) has emerged as a versatile platform for monitoring and tracking the spread and transmission of infectious diseases. The basic premise of WWS is that the detection and quantification of microbial and virial biomarkers extracted from samples of untreated wastewater can be used to monitor the onset, spread, and transmission of infectious diseases in communities. Currently, wastewater samples for WSS measurements need to be refrigerated at 4°C immediately after collection and processed within 24 h to increase the accuracy of the results. These requirements lead to an inevitable reliance on a cold chain for collecting, transporting, and storing wastewater samples, which might not be feasible both logistically and financially in resource-limited settings. The overarching goal of this research is to design and synthesize novel porous polymer beads that could absorb the collected wastewater with the goal of preserving the samples and the target pathogens within the beads without the need for a cold chain. The successful completion of this project has the potential to improve accuracy and lower the cost of WSS testing which will facilitate its adoption in resource-limited settings with underserved populations. Additional benefits to society will be achieved through student education and training including the mentoring of a graduate student at Georgia Tech. Wastewater surveillance (WSS) can complement existing clinical and diagnosis tools for monitoring the spread and transmission of infectious pathogens and disease. However, a cold chain for the collection, transport, and storage of wastewater samples is typically required. To overcome this challenge, the Principal Investigators (PIs) proposes to investigate the design, synthesis, and evaluation of porous super-absorbent polymer (PSAP) beads that could absorb wastewater samples and capture the target pathogens at the point of collection with an initial focus on viruses with 20-200 nanometers in size. The specific objectives of this research are to 1) design and tailor the composition, structure, physicochemical, and functional properties of PSAP beads to optimize the selective capture of target viral pathogens from wastewater samples; 2) demonstrate the effectiveness of PSAP beads for wastewater sample pretreatment and preservation; 3) investigate the mechanisms of PSAP beads for the preservation of testing targets; and 4) validate the new PSAP beads by benchmarking their effectiveness against the standard sampling methodology using ongoing WWS monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 on the Georgia Tech campus as test cases. The successful completion of this project has the potential for transformative impact through the development and validation of more effective sampling devices and protocols to advance the implementation and deployment of WWS in in resource-limited settings with underserved populations. To implement the education and training goals of the project, the PIs propose to leverage existing programs at Georgia Tech such as the SURE (Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering/Sciences) program to recruit and mentor undergraduate students from underrepresented groups to work on the project. In addition, the PIs plan to involve all the project graduate/undergraduate students with the Georgia Tech campus WWS program and provide them with the opportunity to learn cross-discipline skills needed to work on a transdisciplinary project that converges microbiology with materials science and environmental engineering. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.