Feb 9, 2023 · 37m · how-i-built-this
HIBT Lab! Biobot Analytics: Mariana Matus and Newsha Ghaeli
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This Lab, Guy Raz interviews Biobot Analytics co-founders Dr. Mariana Matus and Newsha Ghaeli about transforming wastewater epidemiology from an MIT research project into a pioneering public health data platform. They discuss how analyzing sewage provides early-warning surveillance for infectious diseases, targeted insights for opioid crises, and a blueprint for the future of global biodefense.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 30.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.8 Guest teaching 4.7 Guest disagreement 0.0 Guy pushing back 0.3
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 7:36 Directly challenging initial experimental failure
In a completely non-combative interview, Matus candidly admits their initial flu experiment was an outright failure that forced them to rethink baseline methodology.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 30:40 Pushing on individual genetic privacy risksRaz directly challenges the guests on whether wastewater genomics could plausibly be used to identify and profile specific individuals without consent.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 16:34 Explaining the multi-day epidemiological lead timeGhaeli systematically breaks down why passive toilet shed data detects infection outbreaks one to two weeks before symptomatic patients seek PCR testing or clinical care.
Guy holds their own ▶ 0:02 Framing wastewater infrastructure as modern data centersRaz opens the episode with an articulate synthesis of how municipal sewage systems function conceptually as biological data centers.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The MIT Intersection: Computational Biology Meets Smart Cities | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz sets up the premise of wastewater as collective data centers, while Matus and Ghaeli explain the novel intersection of smart cities and microbiome research at MIT. | |
| Early MIT Research and Overcoming Initial Experimental Setbacks | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | The guests recount the physical grit of pumping sewage directly from city manholes and explain their initial experimental failure trying to track flu strains. | |
| The 24-Hour Sampling Experiment and Validating Wastewater Data | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Matus details their 24-hour round-the-clock sampling campaign that pinpointed 8 a.m. peak waste times and proved biological signals were human-derived rather than sewer noise. | |
| Mid-Episode Break 1 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | After returning from the mid-roll break, the founders describe commercializing Biobot and catalog the specific pathogens detectable in sewage, from COVID variants to hepatitis C. | |
| Wastewater Epidemiology as an Early Warning Indicator | 3 | 5 | 0 | 1 | Ghaeli explains why wastewater leads clinical PCR testing and hospitalization numbers by up to two weeks, while Raz probes their unique government-focused business model. | |
| Private Enterprise, University, and Correctional Facility Applications | 3 | 6 | 0 | 0 | Matus shares a concrete case study from Cary, North Carolina, where wastewater tracking uncovered prescription opioid trends and directly helped reduce overdoses by 40 percent. | |
| Mid-Episode Break 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Raz asks how the founders transitioned from academic researchers to venture-backed entrepreneurs raising over 30 million dollars, which both founders reflect on positively. | |
| Global Network Effects and Future Pandemic Preparedness | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Ghaeli articulates the network effects of global wastewater intelligence, arguing that interconnected travel hubs make international monitoring essential against future pandemics. | |
| Ethical Responsibilities, Privacy, and Human DNA Sequencing | 4 | 5 | 0 | 2 | Raz presses on privacy concerns regarding the potential to sequence individual human genomes from sewage, prompting Matus to explain technical limits and proactive ethical frameworks. | |
| The Ten-Year Vision: Chronic Disease Monitoring and Global Sanitation | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Matus and Ghaeli outline their 10-year vision to monitor population-level stress hormones and leverage health data as an economic incentive to build sanitation infrastructure in developing nations. |
Statements from this episode (17)
Wastewater is an overlooked, non-invasive source of population health data
“Wastewater had been massively overlooked as a critical source of data to understand population health, and I think that the beauty of tapping into pee, poo, or wastewater as a data source is that we naturally are excreting it out. So rather than needing to be …”
MIT neighborhood study identified 8:00 a.m. as peak time for bowel movements
“We saw that eight a.m. Seems to be the peak poop time, at least for that neighborhood that we were looking at”
Biobot Analytics was the first company globally to commercialize wastewater intelligence
“When we started Biobot, we were the first company in the world to bring wastewater intelligence to market, and it was precisely for that reason.”
Wastewater testing can detect influenza, RSV, gonorrhea, and hepatitis C
“It is possible to look at influenza, RSV, other respiratory viruses, to look at gastrointestinal diseases like norovirus, to look at sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea or chlamydia, to look at blood-borne pathogens like hepatitis C.”
Humans excrete most of their infectious pathogens into the wastewater system
“Based on our research to date and that of other groups we actually end up excreting most of the infectious diseases that infect our bodies.”
Wastewater platforms will eventually track chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes
“I absolutely see the future where we will have enough data to start to learn kind of predictive components of data To then be able to look at those other more chronic diseases and ultimately, of course, be able to flag a new threat before anybody else knows ab…”
Investors struggle with startups targeting the government as their core early customer
“It's been a challenge for many investors to wrap their heads around this new type of business model and a startup that is proposing to work with government as the target customer, as the core customer from day one.”
Biobot monitors wastewater in over 400 US communities for the CDC
“Through our work with the CDC, we're working in over 400 communities across the country.”
Biobot monitors wastewater for enterprise office campuses and Manhattan skyscrapers
“So we do work with some enterprise clients as well. So these are namely office buildings or campuses that are so large that they somewhat operate like a small city or a mini city. So the types of buildings we monitor can range from large office campuses or par…”
Biobot deploys wastewater testing to universities and prison systems to detect outbreaks
“And then we also work with university campuses, so similar value proposition there, and prison systems to help guide, you know, when there might be silent outbreaks in the community, and guide when they should deploy clinical tests to identify some of these si…”
Cary, North Carolina saw a 40% overdose drop using Biobot wastewater data
“The message was embraced by the community, and they saw a 40% decrease in overdoses, which was also the first ever decrease they'd seen in overdoses in their town in almost a decade.”
Wastewater drug tracking will transform global substance abuse crisis response
“We also absolutely believe that the drug use data that we can collect from wastewater, so use of substances like opioids, meth, cocaine, and other emerging substances, will just transform our ability to understand and to tackle that other crisis that is happen…”
Wastewater intelligence networks become exponentially more powerful as more locations join
“The more and more locations domestically and abroad come online and are generating You know, this intelligence from their wastewater systems, the more powerful the data becomes. There truly is a network effect at play”
Climate change accelerates outbreak risks, making global wastewater tracking systems critical
“Climate change is just accelerating the potential of outbreaks with pandemic potential, and so having a global wastewater intelligence system in place is gonna be really critical to our collective public health.”
Less than one percent of genetic data in wastewater originates from humans
“We found that much less than one percent of the genetic data we got back was coming from people.”
Matus: The world will broadly adopt wastewater epidemiology within ten years
“I think that in 10 years, if I look out 10 years, I think that the world will have adopted this type of data collection by large. I think most places will be online, if you will.”
Biobot advises urban planners on designing smart sewers for newly built cities
“I mean, it's already happening, you know, in some countries where they are building cities sort of from scratch, where, you know, we've talked to some of the folks leading those urban planning projects around how can they build smart sewers into their design f…”