Join us for a timely research lecture:

“SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater for Prediction of COVID-19 Temporal and Spatial Fluctuations: A pilot study in the City of Detroit and Wayne, Macomb and Oakland Counties”

Our guest lecturer is Dr. Irene Xagoraraki, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in MSU’s College of Engineering.

Testing in her laboratory gave early warnings of temporal fluctuations of COVID-19 in April and May, described in published paper (Miyani B., Fonoll X., Norton J., Mehrotra A., Xagoraraki I. (2020) SARS-CoV-2 in Detroit Wastewater. Journal of Environmental Engineering, 146(11): 06020004). Recently, the team predicted the second wave of COVID-19 that took place in July in the Detroit area two weeks in advance (data submitted for publication).

“Wastewater surveillance is getting a lot of attention recently, but this approach needs to go beyond simple testing of wastewater if prediction and issuing of early warnings is the goal,” she explained.

Learn more about how Xagoraraki and her students conduct community composite samples work in this video.

Funded by the Great Lakes Water Authority, Xagoraraki is using a method from one of her recently completed studies, to test and predict COVID-19 in Detroit that can deliver warnings of potential outbreaks even before they appear in health facilities. Her presentation will describe details from collection methods and sample cleaning, to modeling and decision making.

Our virtual host for the event is Dr. Tom Guarr, Director of Research and Development at the MSU Bioeconomy Institute in Holland, Mich.

Please register in advance to receive the Zoom login credentials.