PR95345

MANASSAS, Va. April 6, 2022 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

Ceres Nanosciences (Ceres), a privately held company that makes innovative

products to improve life science research and diagnostic testing, is announcing

the establishment of six new wastewater-based epidemiology centers of

excellence. The new centers add to the nine existing centers of excellence

previously announced in November 2021  (

https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=3494925-1&h=1444418177&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ceresnano.com%2Fpress-release-coe9&a=November+2021

) and to the wastewater testing program in metro-Atlanta that is being run by

Emory University, all supported by an $8.2 million award (

https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=3494925-1&h=1094592093&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ceresnano.com%2Fpress-release-nih-wwt&a=%248.2+million+award

) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Rapid Acceleration of

Diagnostics (RADx(R)) initiative.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1780598/Ceres_Nanosciences_Logo.jpg

These sixteen sites encompass non-profit, university, public health, and

commercial testing labs located in fourteen states, including Arizona,

California, Connecticut, Illinois, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana,

Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin and are

providing wastewater testing services to forty states.

The centers are regularly monitoring wastewater from a wide range of sources,

including from wastewater treatment plants to provide information on overall

virus trends in a county or city; from sewersheds to support decision-making

for public health resource allocation at a neighborhood level; and from

building-level locations like college dorms, skilled nursing facilities,

correctional facilities, K-12 schools, summer camps, and airports.

Each center was selected (

https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=3494925-1&h=3362421764&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ceresnano.com%2Fwastewater&a=selected

) based on its ability to utilize the expanded capacity to extend services into

underserved and underprivileged communities and is expected to share results

with local and state public health authorities, as well as to submit data to

the CDC National Wastewater Surveillance System (

https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=3494925-1&h=2669382816&u=https%3A%2F%2Fcovid.cdc.gov%2Fcovid-data-tracker%2F%23wastewater-surveillance&a=CDC+National+Wastewater+Surveillance+System

) (NWSS).

Each center of excellence received the materials and on-site training to

implement an automated Nanotrap(R) particle protocol, which enables same-day

delivery of wastewater testing results for over 100 samples per day. Extracted

nucleic acids from this automated protocol are compatible with multiple nucleic

acid detection methods, including reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase

chain reaction (RT-qPCR), reverse transcription-droplet digital PCR (RT-ddPCR),

and genomic sequencing.

"The wastewater testing capacity that this NIH-funded program has established

nationwide is proving critical for monitoring the rise of new SARS-CoV-2

variants," said Ben Lepene, Chief Technology Officer at Ceres Nanosciences.

"I'm also very excited by the data we are seeing that demonstrate that the same

method can be used to enable wastewater monitoring of a much wider range of

infectious disease, including other viruses, bacteria, and parasites."

Full details are available at https://www.ceresnano.com/press-release-coe16

Press Contact:

Ross M. Dunlap

Ceres Nanosciences, Inc

1.800.615.0418 ext. 202

rdunlap@ceresnano.com

www.ceresnano.com　

SOURCE  Ceres Nanosciences, Inc