SAN ANTONIO – A wastewater contamination project at Texas A&M University-San Antonio is one step closer to federal funding.
Earlier this month, Congressman Joaquin Castro secured approval from the U.S. House Appropriations Committee for $11 million for community projects around San Antonio, the university said. If approved, $1 million would be allocated to Dr. Davida Smyth’s efforts to track harmful wastewater contaminants around the city.
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The funding has not yet passed the U.S. House of Representatives or U.S. Senate.
Smyth explained how the research will help keep locals safe.
“The way the surveillance ideally works is it’s predictive,” Smyth said. “It sees a pattern before there’s a problem.”
One of the ways to predict is through sequencing. In this case, sequencing identifies the exact parts of molecules within a virus.
“Remember when we were hearing about alpha and delta and omicron [COVID-19 variants]?” Smyth said. “The way that we identified those was through sequencing. So, what I want to do is have it so that our students are doing sequencing. They are doing sequencing in classes here, so they learn how to use the sequencer.”
Improved sequencing processes can bring higher costs to the lab.
“Having more equipment like this would benefit the lab tremendously,” TAMU-SA graduate student Blake Meche said.
Meche also uses a lot of the evolving technology.
“What I’m looking for specifically in the wastewater is MRSA, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which is a very nasty antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” Meche said.
KSAT asked Meche what it could mean for San Antonio if MRSA is positive in a wastewater sample.
“It wouldn’t be ideal,” Meche said. “It’s not typically a problem until you get a cut or an open wound where that bacterium is then introduced, and it starts to grow and then becomes very difficult to treat.”
Meche tests various water samples from around San Antonio. He said it can be a lengthy process.
“Whenever I was doing the samples entirely in a manual process, it would take me about four hours start-to-finish,” Meche said.
Fortunately for students, the university received help from a robot approximately a year ago.
“With using the robot, I would say I have that time down to around 2.5 hours. So much, much more efficient,” Meche said. “There are many other things that we do in the lab that we don’t have machines like that for us, so this funding would definitely be a huge help.”
Smyth and Meche are hopeful their work will detect bacteria and viruses in the water better, giving San Antonians the necessary information to stay healthy.