Browsing by Author "Stadler, Lauren B"

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    Elucidating the impact of microbial community biodiversity on pharmaceutical biotransformation during wastewater treatment.
    (Microbial biotechnology, 2018-11) Stadler, Lauren B; Delgado Vela, Jeseth; Jain, Sunit; Dick, Gregory J; Love, Nancy G
    In addition to removing organics and other nutrients, the microorganisms in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) biotransform many pharmaceuticals present in wastewater. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between pharmaceutical biotransformation and biodiversity in WWTP bioreactor microbial communities and identify taxa and functional genes that were strongly associated with biotransformation. Dilution-to-extinction of an activated sludge microbial community was performed to establish cultures with a gradient of microbial biodiversity. Batch experiments were performed using the dilution cultures to determine biotransformation extents of several environmentally relevant pharmaceuticals. With this approach, because the communities were all established from the same original community, and using sequencing of the 16S rRNA and metatranscriptome, we identified candidate taxa and genes whose activity and transcript abundances associated with the extent of individual pharmaceutical biotransformation and were lost across the biodiversity gradient. Metabolic genes such as dehydrogenases, amidases and monooxygenases were significantly associated with pharmaceutical biotransformation, and five genera were identified whose activity significantly associated with pharmaceutical biotransformation. Understanding how biotransformation relates to biodiversity will inform the design of biological WWTPs for enhanced removal of chemicals that negatively impact environmental health.
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    Impact of Disaster Research on the Development of Early Career Researchers: Lessons Learned from the Wastewater Monitoring Pandemic Response Efforts.
    (Environmental science & technology, 2022-04) Delgado Vela, Jeseth; McClary-Gutierrez, Jill S; Al-Faliti, Mitham; Allan, Vajra; Arts, Peter; Barbero, Roberto; Bell, Cristalyne; D'Souza, Nishita; Bakker, Kevin; Kaya, Devrim; Gonzalez, Raul; Harrison, Katherine; Kannoly, Sherin; Keenum, Ishi; Li, Lin; Pecson, Brian; Philo, Sarah E; Schneider, Rebecca; Schussman, Melissa K; Shrestha, Abhilasha; Stadler, Lauren B; Wigginton, Krista R; Boehm, Alexandria; Halden, Rolf U; Bibby, Kyle
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    Standardizing data reporting in the research community to enhance the utility of open data for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance.
    (Environmental science : water research & technology, 2021-01) McClary-Gutierrez, Jill S; Aanderud, Zachary T; Al-Faliti, Mitham; Duvallet, Claire; Gonzalez, Raul; Guzman, Joe; Holm, Rochelle H; Jahne, Michael A; Kantor, Rose S; Katsivelis, Panagis; Kuhn, Katrin Gaardbo; Langan, Laura M; Mansfeldt, Cresten; McLellan, Sandra L; Grijalva, Lorelay M Mendoza; Murnane, Kevin S; Naughton, Colleen C; Packman, Aaron I; Paraskevopoulos, Sotirios; Radniecki, Tyler S; Roman, Fernando A; Shrestha, Abhilasha; Stadler, Lauren B; Steele, Joshua A; Swalla, Brian M; Vikesland, Peter; Wartell, Brian; Wilusz, Carol J; Wong, Judith Chui Ching; Boehm, Alexandria B; Halden, Rolf U; Bibby, Kyle; Vela, Jeseth Delgado
    SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection in wastewater is being rapidly developed and adopted as a public health monitoring tool worldwide. With wastewater surveillance programs being implemented across many different scales and by many different stakeholders, it is critical that data collected and shared are accompanied by an appropriate minimal amount of metainformation to enable meaningful interpretation and use of this new information source and intercomparison across datasets. While some databases are being developed for specific surveillance programs locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally, common globally-adopted data standards have not yet been established within the research community. Establishing such standards will require national and international consensus on what metainformation should accompany SARS-CoV-2 wastewater measurements. To establish a recommendation on minimum information to accompany reporting of SARS-CoV-2 occurrence in wastewater for the research community, the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Coordination Network on Wastewater Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 hosted a workshop in February 2021 with participants from academia, government agencies, private companies, wastewater utilities, public health laboratories, and research institutes. This report presents the primary two outcomes of the workshop: (i) a recommendation on the set of minimum meta-information that is needed to confidently interpret wastewater SARS-CoV-2 data, and (ii) insights from workshop discussions on how to improve standardization of data reporting.
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    Wastewater surveillance for bacterial targets: current challenges and future goals
    (Applied and Environmental Microbiology) Philo, Sarah E; De León, Kara B; Noble, Rachel T; Zhou, Nicolette A; Alghafri, Rashed; Bar-Or, Itay; Darling, Amanda; D'Souza, Nishita; Hachimi, Oumaima; Kaya, Devrim; Kim, Sooyeol; Gaardbo Kuhn, Katrin; Layton, Blythe A; Mansfeldt, Cresten; Oceguera, Bethany; Radniecki, Tyler S; Ram, Jeffrey L; Saunders, Lauren P; Shrestha, Abhilasha; Stadler, Lauren B; Steele, Joshua A; Stevenson, Bradley S; Vogel, Jason R; Bibby, Kyle; Boehm, Alexandria B; Halden, Rolf U; Delgado Vela, Jeseth
    ABSTRACT Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) expanded rapidly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the public health emergency has ended, researchers and practitioners are looking to shift the focus of existing wastewater surveillance programs to other targets, including bacteria. Bacterial targets may pose some unique challenges for WBE applications. To explore the current state of the field, the National Science Foundation-funded Research Coordination Network (RCN) on Wastewater Based Epidemiology for SARS-CoV-2 and Emerging Public Health Threats held a workshop in April 2023 to discuss the challenges and needs for wastewater bacterial surveillance. The targets and methods used in existing programs were diverse, with twelve different targets and nine different methods listed. Discussions during the workshop highlighted the challenges in adapting existing programs and identified research gaps in four key areas: choosing new targets, relating bacterial wastewater data to human disease incidence and prevalence, developing methods, and normalizing results. To help with these challenges and research gaps, the authors identified steps the larger community can take to improve bacteria wastewater surveillance. This includes developing data reporting standards and method optimization and validation for bacterial programs. Additionally, more work is needed to understand shedding patterns for potential bacterial targets to better relate wastewater data to human infections. Wastewater surveillance for bacteria can help provide insight into the underlying prevalence in communities, but much work is needed to establish these methods. IMPORTANCE Wastewater surveillance was a useful tool to elucidate the burden and spread of SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic. Public health officials and researchers are interested in expanding these surveillance programs to include bacterial targets, but many questions remain. The NSF-funded Research Coordination Network for Wastewater Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 and Emerging Public Health Threats held a workshop to identify barriers and research gaps to implementing bacterial wastewater surveillance programs.