{"id":1272,"date":"2021-10-05T21:56:59","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T21:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thermofisher.com\/blog\/life-in-the-lab\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2021-10-05T23:58:51","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T23:58:51","slug":"a-brief-history-of-wastewater-testing-and-pathogen-detection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thermofisher.com\/blog\/life-in-the-lab\/a-brief-history-of-wastewater-testing-and-pathogen-detection\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History of Wastewater Testing and Pathogen Detection"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Since humans started building permanent structures in which to live, even as far back as the\u00a0Babylonians around 4,000 B.C., we have sought to get our waste as far away from ourselves\u00a0as possible.1<\/sup> That effort has continued to the\u00a0 modern-day, where the sewers under our feet\u00a0carry billions of gallons of waste<\/a> (every day!) away from our most populated areas.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

It is the pinnacle of \u2018out of sight, out of mind.\u2019<\/p>\n

But in flushing and forgetting our waste, we are also flushing a wealth of information about\u00a0our biology and the infectious diseases that threaten our health. What if, we could use our\u00a0waste to spot the outbreak of disease before a\u00a0 community even starts to show symptoms?\u00a0It\u2019s a powerful thought and one that could change public health. And it\u2019s not new. The\u00a0concept of pathogen detection<\/a> through wastewater testing<\/strong> is centuries old.<\/p>\n

Monitoring the Complexities of the Human Microbiome<\/h3>\n

What makes wastewater pathogen detection so valuable is the incredible quantity of\u00a0microbes that live within our digestive tracts. These microbes, comprising the gut\u00a0microbiome<\/a>, play an incredible (though poorly understood) role in overall human health, for\u00a0everything from digestion to cardiac health<\/a> to the immune system.3,4<\/sup> Viruses, bacteria, fungi,\u00a0and other microbes form a complex system within the gut, competing with invading\u00a0pathogens for attachment sites and nutrients, aiding in carbohydrate digestion, producing\u00a0vitamins, and more. Many biological functions that need to be executed for us to survive are\u00a0carried out by the human microbiome<\/a>. We can find evidence of the organisms contained\u00a0within it in the fecal matter we eliminate and draw conclusions about the health of the\u00a0subject or community from where it came. While the concept of getting this waste far away\u00a0from where we live may be as old as human settlement, the idea to utilize that same waste\u00a0to monitor health and disease on both the individual and community level is a much more\u00a0recent development, dating back to the 19th century.<\/p>\n