On Sept. 3, 2020, a team of Virginia Tech researchers announced that they will begin testing wastewater at 15 campus sites for the presence of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), enabling the university to more rapidly identify and respond to positive tests.

The advance will allow the university to monitor clusters of campus buildings on a daily basis, testing for the presence of the virus in fecal matter. If the testing shows positive results, the university can then conduct targeted testing among individuals in those buildings to zero in on possible infections. The idea is to more proactively identify virus clusters, even when individuals may be asymptomatic.

The team — led by Vikesland, civil and environmental engineering professor Amy Pruden, and Ph.D. candidate Ayella Maile-Moskowitz — has been conducting sampling at five campus sites to test the process, but is just beginning to test samples. Now, Virginia Tech’s Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have invested $200,000 to expand the project to 15 sites on the Blacksburg campus. Most, but not all, of the sampling sites focus on clusters of residence halls.

The samples are processed within a day after they’re received at the lab, and Finkielstein said the additional samples will not significantly add to the lab’s workload. In fact, they likely will help Virginia Tech to proactively target its testing toward potential outbreaks: If positive results show up for a cluster of residence halls, Virginia Tech will work with the Virginia Department of Health to do more testing within those halls, as well as to conduct contact-tracing.

This methodology grew out of a previous project targeted at tracking antibiotic resistance by monitoring sewage. With the pandemic and approvals to develop the process for COVID-19, researchers are learning more and may be able to adapt the system to monitor for other viruses and markers in the future.