Inside the Pine Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in southern Calgary, a laboratory run by the University of Calgary is busy processing wastewater samples from municipalities across the province.
This laboratory, along with one operated by the University of Alberta, began tracking levels of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in wastewater in early 2020, providing Alberta Health Services with infection trends in different communities.
Now the project has been expanded to detect influenza A and B, as well as RSV, respiratory viruses that are currently putting Alberta’s healthcare system to the test.
Kevin Frankowski, chief executive of Advancing Canadian Water Assets, says adding more pathogens to the list to monitor in the future could provide “meaningful” data.
“Once we have the samples, adding additional targets to monitor is reasonably straightforward,” he said. “We can extract more and more information from them.”
Maria Bautista, a senior research associate in the University of Calgary’s Geomicrobiology Group, said the process starts with collecting a good sample.
“The purpose… is to capture a sample that represents the 24 hours of any municipality.” she said. “They capture a little bit of water every, say, 15 minutes.”
When samples are received at the laboratory, they are concentrated before “breaking” any virus present to release its DNA and RNA.
After mixing the sample with a solution, Bautista said, it is passed through a column of silica. DNA and RNA bind to the column, while “everything else we don’t want just flows away.”
The DNA and RNA are then collected and sent to another lab in Calgary for analysis.
Makes testing inclusive and complete, provide an accurate view of infection levels.
cost effective monitoring
Frankowski said that since COVID-19, the amount of activity in the lab, as well as the number of people working there, has increased.
He added that because the lab deals with a variety of fields, from analytical chemistry to microbiology, it is unusual.
“There are a limited number of laboratories within wastewater treatment plants that can do this type of work,” Frankowski said.
He added that it is an extremely profitable monitoring program and an “excellent investment,” operating on less than a dollar per year, per person monitored.
“I think there is great potential for this approach.”
