Dr. Mariana Matus, co-founder of Biobot Analytics, describes an early MIT 24-hour sampling experiment designed to find the optimal time of day for municipal wastewater collection.
Prediction Not checkable as stated
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…”
Assertion Supported
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.”
Insight
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.”
Assertion Supported
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.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
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…”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
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.”