image: Enabling the concentration of pathogens, purification of nucleic acids, rapid one-pot detection, lyophilized reagents with the deployment of compact, battery-powered diagnostic microdevices.
Credit: ©Science China Press
Since the early 21st century, frequent outbreaks of infectious pathogens—including MERS-CoV, Zika, Ebola, SARS-CoV-2, and mpox—have caused widespread infections and high fatalities. In this context, wastewater-based epidemiology has proven increasingly valuable for pandemic surveillance. Unlike clinical screening focusing on individuals, wastewater monitoring tracks community-level transmission trends, offering more efficient epidemiological insights.
Traditional methods require transporting samples to central labs for nucleic acid analysis—a costly model limiting accessibility. Only 16 lower-middle-income regions (23% of adopters) implement such programs due to expenses and operational complexity. As societies transition to the post-pandemic era, balancing costs and public health benefits is crucial for sustainable global surveillance.
This study introduces WATER NEWS (Wastewater Analysis and Epidemiology Recognition: Necessary On-site Early Warning System), a CRISPR-based one-pot platform enabling rapid on-site pathogen detection. The system overcomes four critical barriers: aerosol contamination risks during testing, time-consuming laboratory procedures, cold-chain logistics for sample transport, and dependency on expensive instrumentation. Field demonstrations at wastewater sites reduced total operational costs by 50% compared to conventional methods, validating its deployability. By delivering electricity-free pathogen screening in resource-limited regions within 20 minutes, WATER NEWS pioneers sustainable epidemic surveillance for the post-COVID era.
Professor Han-Qing Yu and Professor Dong-Feng Liu from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) as corresponding authors. Dr. Zhou-Hua Cheng was the first author. Collaborators included Dr. Meng Du, Master's student Hao-Da Wang, Professor Chen Qian, and Professor Wen-Wei Li from USTC, along with Dr. Shu-Xia Zhang from Fujian Medical University Union Hospital.