YOUNGSTOWN — Research at Youngstown State University is helping to track the rise and fall of COVID-19 on campus.

Scientists in New York started tracking wastewater trends and found a correlation between viral loads in wastewater and rising COVID-19 cases. Also, wastewater has been used in tracing monkeypox and a number of other infectious diseases.

Now the process is at work at YSU.

Kira Bowman of Vienna is one of nine YSU students to receive national recognition for their research projects, presented during a conference earlier this month.

The senior biochemistry major placed second at the National Collegiate Honors Council Conference in Dallas where Bowman presented findings from a project titled, “Extracting COVID-19 Virus (SARS-CoV-2) from Excrement.”

As the title suggests, yes, it deals in human waste.

The research project led by biology professor Chet Cooper is an outgrowth of a program funded by the Ohio Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2020 to detect COVID-19 virus in the wastewater of five YSU residence halls.

Collections came from Lyden House; Cafaro House; Kilcawley House and the two Courtyard Apartment buildings on campus.

Bowman said there’s not a specific dorm showing high rates, but trends are noticed to increase in students when leaving for summer or winter break then returning to campus.

“When they come back, the numbers are usually a little elevated,” Bowman said.

Ahead of the upcoming Thanksgiving break, Bowman said she expects the campus will see a spike upon students returning.

HIGH PROFILE

Three years ago, Bowman was one of three undergraduate students tapped by the professor to participate in the research and development of the project.

“Because it was so high profile, Cooper didn’t put a lot of pressure on us to take it,” Bowman said. “But when we were offered it, we all said ‘heck yeah’ to taking on the demand.”

Bowman previously had been working in Cooper’s lab for YSU’s Honors College, making her and the others ideal choices.

“Bowman is a true role model of an undergraduate researcher and a most valuable member of our laboratory family,” Cooper said. “Her work ethic is impeccable and her enthusiasm for research is infectious.”

Bowman’s presentation was selected from among 178 academic posters presented at the conference, which attracts students, faculty and administrators from around the world.

“Hearing from students doing the same level of high-profile research as you was an honor and an exciting experience to be a part of,” Bowman said.

Cooper’s research looked at how a community’s health can be monitored through wastewater-based epidemiology. The community-based concepts are used to monitor levels of the virus from the five residence halls.

The success of the project has helped increase grant funding for the group of researchers to conduct tests of samples in-house.

“Before, the turnaround time used to be two to three days because samples were sent to a commercial analytical lab in Houston,” Cooper said.

TESTING

Tests are conducted by setting up auto-samplers at each residence hall, which collect wastewater samples every Tuesday and Friday — every 15 minutes over a 24-hour sampling period.

In the simplest terms, the next step involves processing and RNA extraction, with each sample placed into a centrifuge tube and filtered.

Next, samples are poured into spin columns culminating in the extraction of the SARS-Cov-2 RNA.

A concentration of two nucleocapsids (protein) is eventually compared to what Bowman called the “pepper virus” or pepper mild mottle virus naturally found in human waste, to ensure that they’re in fact dealing with fecal matter.

“We then compare the nucleocapsid and pepper virus numbers, them divide it by how many residents are in each dorm, to get our number of how many nucleocapsids there are per resident,” Bowman said.

Findings are then sent to the Ohio Department of Health.

Resources are offered for the community to help protect from further spread of the virus.

Cooper said the use of wastewater epidemiology has shown signs of success around the world. The practice can be observed in more than 50 countries and 400 labs across 19 states in the U.S.

“There’s an analogy that you can tell a lot about a person from their trash. Well, you can do the same when it comes to their waste, too,” Bowman said with a chuckle.