Bangor University has announced an exclusive partnership with Verily, a precision health technology company, to expand its wastewater surveillance program into the United Kingdom and Europe.
This collaboration will leverage the University’s wastewater-based public health surveillance program capabilities and main testing lab. Bangor University’s wastewater monitoring capabilities are market leading in the UK for environmental bio-surveillance and the University’s lab serves as one of the research and development hubs for the United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and Welsh Government.
The Bangor University lab, led by Davey Jones, PhD, a noted Professor of Environmental Science & Public Health and Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Bangor University, will adopt Verily’s advanced wastewater testing technology to deliver high-quality public health data, crucial for tracking virus transmission and bolstering research and development efforts across both the public and private sectors. With this collaboration, the lab will extend its testing service capabilities to a wide range of human pathogens, including Norovirus, Influenza viruses, MPXV, SARS-CoV-2, antimicrobial resistant bacteria, and fungi. The lab will also accelerate new capability development, including environmental testing. Professor Jones and his team will continue to lead operations in the Bangor University laboratory, in partnership with Verily.
Since its inception in 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangor University’s wastewater lab has become a leader in environmental bio-surveillance in the UK. Utilizing Verily’s high-throughput, state-of-the-art wastewater lab automation to optimise efficiency, Bangor University will further establish itself as a world class wastewater surveillance facility capable of serving all regions of the UK and Europe broadly, and meeting current and emerging public health needs.
“Our partnership with Bangor University is an exciting advancement in Verily’s mission to establish an international pathogen monitoring network as we expand our capabilities to Europe,” said Andrew Trister, MD, PhD, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer at Verily.
“This collaboration enables our combined expertise to unlock assays more quickly and monitor for new pathogen targets that protect public health and foster safer, healthier communities worldwide.”
“Verily’s wastewater solutions and expanded pathogen database will amplify our ability to monitor for and respond to public health threats effectively,” said Professor Davey Jones. “Together, we are integrating world-class science with advanced technology to deliver critical public health data to the UK and beyond.”
As a leader in the laboratory science behind wastewater-based epidemiology, Verily’s wastewater program offers logistics and surveillance to test for pathogens present in wastewater, allowing for timely monitoring and detection to inform faster and more precise public health actions. Verily currently collaborates with leading US-based public health organisations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and WastewaterSCAN, to provide wastewater testing services to track the presence of over 15 pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, Influenza and the H5 sub-type, and MPXV (formerly known as monkeypox virus) in wastewater samples from hundreds of sites across the United States.
This new partnership signifies Verily's entry into the European market and reinforces its commitment to global public health surveillance. Currently, Verily and Bangor University are working to onboard customers, including governments and life science companies, for both wastewater testing and generating unique insights from wastewater data.