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Health

Inside the lab that looks for viruses in wastewater from US homes

A facility in Massachusetts has been analysing thousands of wastewater samples from across the US every week, looking for viruses and signs of disease. It could soon become permanent

By Jeremy Hsu

26 March 2023

Wastewater samples at BioBot's lab

Wastewater samples at Biobot’s lab

Jeremy Hsu

Thousands of wastewater samples from sewage systems across the US get flown and trucked to a lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, every week. Inside the facility, which is owned by the company Biobot Analytics, employees in white lab coats prepare to test the samples for traces of the virus that causes covid-19. Since 2020, the lab has helped track the ongoing pandemic. Now, Biobot and other labs hope to expand the use of wastewater to track a wider array of diseases including the seasonal surges of…

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