Top Story: How U of M researchers became national leaders in wastewater analysis

Previous University of Minnesota Medical School researchers, Glenn Simmons Jr. and Richard G. Melvin made an outstanding discovery during the height of the pandemic. In 2020, in their Duluth lab, Simmons and Melvin decided to switch things up, taking their approach to wastewater analysis a bit differently. By using a much more basic approach, by isolating nucleic acid material, they were able to detect the virus that causes COVID-19 in the wastewater. This was a huge step for researchers during the pandemic, providing information to alert the public and to help industries know when they can safely operate.

By testing wastewater, researchers were able to detect the virus much earlier than with human tests. But as the pandemic comes to a close, this research can still be used elsewhere. Dr. Tim Schacker, vice dean for research at the University of Minnesota Medical School, spoke to Mlps St. Paul Magazine about his hard work with his team, analyzing wastewater to detect diseases before they become a global health crisis. “If you know what you’re looking for, like SARS-CoV-2, you can design a test that is very accurate to measure virus in the sample,” Schacker says. “This is working very well for the current pandemic, but the next one might start with a bacteria, virus, or fungus that we were not expecting, and it will be really important to develop methods to detect the unexpected before they become a significant health problem.”

You can read the full Mpls St. Paul Magazine article here.