Customer Advance
West Virginia University - Environmental Water Surveillance
The Driscoll Lab at West Virginia University uses genomics and bioinformatics to track disease agents and understand how they originate and spread from a One Health perspective. The laboratory processes environmental water samples from wastewater, surface water, and large-scale event wastewater on a statewide basis. The main laboratory is located at the West Virginia University campus, but they also have a mobile laboratory for onsite sample preparation, concentration, and extraction, enabling them to process samples much faster. The lab processes approximately 30 samples per week and are currently testing for SARS-CoV-2, RSV, Flu A, Flu B, and norovirus using both a high-throughput automated system and sequencing.
The Need
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Less cumbersome and laborious sample processing
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Easy to train new lab personnel on the workflow
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Continuous product availability
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Ability to scale up the process of
concentrating biological entities
for most water sample types -
Quick concentration of large volumes
of wastewater to small volumes for
automated liquid handling
“We keep being surprised at what we can concentrate with them (the Nanotrap Particles). They’re much more generalized than I anticipated or that I knew it first, with things like HIV, RSV, and norovirus. With the Nanotrap A and B Particles we’ve done a couple of fairly large metagenomic studies and they pull down a wide swath of bacteria and viruses.”
– Timothy Driscoll,Associate Professor, West Virginia University
Results
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Ability to bind the viral biological particles of interest and get a really accurate sample
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Ease of use: Faster and easier to train lab personnel
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Much faster turnaround time: Ability to turn around results in under 24 hours
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Cost: Effective compared to other solutions.
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Improved stability and a longer shelf life
Without need for freezing the samples -
Reduced PCR contaminants and sample inhibition
The Solution
Capture and
Concentration
Extraction
Analysis
Capture and
Concentration
Nanotrap® A Microbiome Particles, Nanotrap® Microbiome B Particles, and Nanotrap® Enhancement Reagent 3
MagMAX™ Wastewater
Ultra Nucleic Acid Isolation Kit, Thermo Fisher Scientific
Bio-Rad ddPCR