The Wadsworth Center, in collaboration with the Center for Environmental Health and Syracuse University, hosted a Wastewater Surveillance Summit on October 23. The event brought together experts from public health, academia, and research organizations to discuss innovations, share experiences, and explore future directions in wastewater-based surveillance.
Many Wadsworth Center staff participated, representing a broad range of expertise, ranging from purification and extraction of genetic material and chemicals to testing, data analysis, and interpretation. Presentations highlighted innovative applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in wastewater surveillance, as well as new methodologies for bacterial pathogen extraction and enrichment. The Wadsworth Center maintained a strong presence throughout the summit, with staff serving as moderators, speakers, and poster presenters to showcase ongoing projects. Discussions focused on expanding wastewater surveillance beyond COVID-19 monitoring to encompass a wider array of public health applications.
Insights from the summit will guide future technology adoption and next-generation sequencing (NGS) method development within the Wadsworth Center’s Bioinformatics and Advanced Genomic Technologies Cluster (AGTC) core facilities.