Lab Matters Summer 2025 | Page 20

INDUSTRY MATTERS

By Robbie Barbero, PhD, chief business officer, Ceres Nanosciences; Tara Jones-Roe, vice president, Sales and Marketing, Ceres Nanosciences; and Daniel Goldfarb, field applications scientist, Ceres Nanosciences

Ceres Nanosciences, APHL Global Health Team, and APHL Country Directors after a day in the laboratory. Photo: Ceres Nanosciences

Public health laboratories in the United States are relying on wastewater-based epidemiology( WBE) as a cost-effective and scalable tool for tracking infectious diseases. However, there have been some questions about whether the same methods used in the United States can be effective in low- and middle-income countries. To address this question, APHL and Ceres Nanosciences teamed up with the Ethiopian Public Health Institute( EPHI) to evaluate the potential of WBE in a region of the world with limited access to widespread clinical testing and fewer laboratory resources. The project, the results of which were published last year in Frontiers in Public Health, demonstrated how WBE can provide a clearer picture of disease spread in communities where traditional case reporting may not capture the full scope of infections. infrastructure, uneven access to medical facilities and underreporting of cases— particularly among asymptomatic individuals— can make it difficult to track the true burden of infectious diseases like COVID-19. This is where WBE offers a game-changing solution.

In 2023, Ceres Nanosciences hosted APHL staff and APHL country directors from

Ethiopia, Zambia, Kenya and Mozambique and provided hands-on training for WBE laboratory methods. The APHL country directors returned to their jurisdictions to share these methods with their local public health laboratory teams.

From February to November 2023, researchers in Ethiopia collected wastewater samples from three

A New Frontier in Disease Monitoring

Ethiopia, like many resource-challenged countries, faces challenges in clinical disease surveillance. Limited healthcare

APHL Country Directors receiving WBE training at Ceres Nanosciences. Photo: Ceres Nanosciences