Meeting
the
Need

“Sewage sampling can be a valuable surveillance tool because it can provide an early warning to possible infection hot spots,” says Mouser, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. “If trends go up, we sound the alarm. It’s also a great way to look at whether intervention strategies are working.” Mouser and postdoctoral researcher Colosimo have been testing wastewater — because we shed the virus through the gastrointestinal tract, sewage carries traces of the virus’s genetic materials — on campus since August 2020; the team has also extended its expertise to UNH’s host town of Durham, as well as to Plymouth, N.H. and projects in Maine, Boston and at various elder care facilities.

Comparing viral biomarkers found in wastewater to known positive cases confirmed by UNH’s twice-weekly testing, the research, with seed funding from UNH’s Collaborative Research Excellence initiative (CoRE), demonstrated the power of wastewater monitoring to detect presence of the virus ahead of individual testing data. In Durham, a town of 14,000 people living in apartments and private homes, presence of biomarkers in wastewater jumped following known community gathering events: Halloween, winter holidays and the Super Bowl. At several long-term care facilities that contracted privately with Mouser’s lab, the viral signal dropped as vaccinations rose. “That’s been really exciting to see in these facility sewersheds,” she says.

And in Plymouth, home to Plymouth State University, the team’s extensive wastewater surveillance was a sole sentinel in COVID detection. “Since there wasn’t a lot of individual testing going on in that community, they were really tracking the viral levels in the wastewater as an indicator for community infection,” Mouser says.

Paula Mouser and lab members Kellen Sawyer ’21G (left) and Fabrizio Colosimo, postdoctoral researcher (center) sample for viral biomarkers of COVID-19 at Durham’s wastewater treatment plant.

Photo by Jeremy Gasowski

Protecting PPE

The campus and its sewers were empty in mid-March 2020 when, as the pandemic slowed research activity to a crawl, several researchers and staff members sparked up 17 of the university’s 3D printers to address what was then an urgent issue: The widespread lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical personnel and first responders. The printers — many of them humming in home garages and basements — manufactured the headbands that support face shields.

“In the midst of all that was going on, it felt very positive to be able to use our research resources to help make something that was desperately needed by doctors and nurses on the front lines treating patients with the coronavirus,” says University Instrumentation Center director Shawn Banker, who spearheaded the effort in collaboration with the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. At a production rate of 100 per day, by the end of April the effort produced more than 1,600 headbands.

The PPE shortage brought new attention and urgency to professor of civil and environmental engineering Jim Malley and the decades of research his “MalleyCATS” lab had conducted on UV light disinfection. Also funded by CoRE, Malley worked with medical professionals from across the country to help them harness UV light to disinfect and reuse scarce items like N95 masks.

“In a perfect world, masks should be worn once and discarded,” says Malley. “But in a pandemic, with all the supply shortages and strains on healthcare system infection control practices, disinfection practices like ultraviolet light offers an alternative disinfectant option for PPE, allowing them to be reused several times.” In response to this need, Malley and his team tested 16 commercial UV disinfection devices to find ways to improve on their performance and advised healthcare workers on how to achieve the maximum performance and public health protection from them. 

Jim Malley, professor of civil and environmental engineering, has researched ultraviolet light disinfection for years with his lab of “MalleyCATS.”