A vast viral world in wastewater

How metagenomic sequencing helps to understand the spread of viruses

22-Jul-2024 - Deep metagenomic sequencing of wastewater in Berlin over 17 months shows this technique could help forecast disease outbreaks and monitor the spread of human pathogens. It can also reveal thousands of novel viruses, according to a study by the Landthaler lab published in “Environment ...

Searching the sewers for viruses

"In the future, additional tools will be integrated into the pipeline that will even enable us to predict the effects of a newly discovered mutation"

14-Oct-2022 - Algorithms developed at the Max Delbrück Center are able to quickly detect new SARS-CoV-2 variants in wastewater. But that’s not all: the tool, which Altuna Akalin and his colleagues have now presented in “Science of the Total Environment”, can also find other pathogens. SARS-CoV-2 is one of many ...

Wastewater provides new insight into Covid-19 dynamics

An interdisciplinary team shows that the R number of coronavirus can be estimated quickly and cost-effectively from wastewater

17-Dec-2021 - Since the start of the coronavirus (Sars-Cov-2) pandemic, many public health measures have been decided based on its dynamic of spread, more precisely, on the reproductive number of the virus, known as the R number. This value indicates how many people on average are infected by a person carrying ...

Tracking down polluters

04-Sep-2019 - Proving criminal machinations can be difficult – for instance when those involved covertly discharge hazardous wastewater into sewers. A new sensor system developed by Fraunhofer researchers and their partners could soon help safety agencies establish wrongdoing: placed in a sewage canal, it ...