Current State of Wastewater Metagenomics for Pathogen Detection

Webcast

Metagenomics represents a potentially robust approach to identifying viral pathogens in water systems for both wastewater-based surveillance and water quality monitoring. Metagenomic methods to detect viruses in wastewater can simultaneously detect a wide array of potential targets, even novel disease targets. During this webcast, the presenter reviewed recent advances in wastewater viral metagenomics, including approaches to make metagenomic methods more quantitative, excluding free nucleic acids from sequencing, and optimized sample processing and concentration approaches. Opportunities were presented for metagenomic pathogen detection for both water quality monitoring and wastewater-based surveillance.

Presenter: 
Kyle Bibby, PhD, PE,  Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame

Moderator: 
Lola Olabode, MPH, BCES, Research Program Manager, The Water Research Foundation