Airborne pathogens such as respiratory viruses can be difficult to detect in the air circulating within large buildings. To address that challenge, a research project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is developing new technologies that could help health officials more readily identify dangerous diseases in building air.
 

Detecting pathogens is challenging, in part, because the infectious agents exist in low concentrations that can get lost in the dust, pollen, and human DNA also found in ordinary building air. Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are developing and testing new techniques for concentrating the airborne pathogens so they can be found and then identified by laboratory techniques.
 

The work is a project of the Pathogen Genomics Center of Excellence, which was established in 2022 in a collaboration between GTRI, the Georgia Department of Public Health, and the University of Georgia. Other collaborators include Emory University, Georgia State University, and Augusta University.
 

“We’re doing method development to determine the best way to detect these pathogens from an air sample,” said Rebecca Hutchins, the project’s principal investigator and chief engineer in GTRI’s Advanced Concepts Laboratory. “We’ll be able to learn the efficiency of our collection device, and the amount of material that needs to be gathered from the air to detect the pathogen. We’ll use that information to iterate on the engineering of the collection device and on method development for the genomic analysis.”
 

Overcoming Collection Challenges
 

Conventional techniques for collecting samples of airborne pathogens use filters to gather particles from building air, but the technique loses efficiency as the particles of interest must be removed from the filters. 
 

The technique being developed by GTRI and its collaborators will isolate and concentrate particles by impacting them on a disc or glass slide and then retrieve them for analysis. The researchers hope to develop an automated system for moving the collected particles directly to a liquid for analysis using standard laboratory genomics techniques.
 

“We think this will give us a higher collection efficiency because we’ll be able to pass along more of the sample to the analysis steps,” Hutchins said. 
 

Containment Chamber Allows Study
 

To study the collection challenges and potential solutions, the researchers have built a HEPA-filtered bioaerosol containment chamber outfitted with a nebulizer for converting harmless bacteria or virus (E. coli or mouse influenza virus, respectively) samples to aerosols, moving the contaminated air through the chamber, collecting particles, and measuring air flow. To meet biosafety regulations, the chamber itself is completely contained within a large biosafety cabinet.
 

Most building air includes large numbers of particles that are not sources of disease, and from which the pathogens of interest must be extracted. Beyond the collection techniques, the study will also attempt to determine how sensitive the technology will be, and more importantly, whether the levels of potential airborne pathogens it can detect are comparable to the concentrations known to cause disease. 
 

“There might be only one or two people in the building who are sick,” Hutchins said. “We want to understand how the pathogen levels in building air relate to the dose required for infection, information that has been determined by other studies.”
 

Ultimately, the researchers want to develop a portable collection device that could be deployed in an office building, stadium or other facility where large number of people congregate. The device would gather data about infectious diseases that may be present in the air.
 

Developing a Genomics Data Platform
 

Data produced by the pathogen collection will be critical to public health authorities, but analyzing that information to identify disease trends can be both challenging and time-consuming. To address that need, the researchers are also developing a new genomics data platform that will help agencies store, clean, analyze, aggregate, and share epidemiological information with partner organizations. GTRI has built a data platform that could be used for collaborative efforts such as identifying the sources of infections acquired in healthcare settings.
 

Because health data comes from a variety of sources, it often arrives in different formats. Previously, this information had to be standardized manually, a time-consuming process for public health workers who already have too much to do. Beyond standardizing the information it receives, the tool will also provide visualization of the data to spot trends, and allow confidential sharing of critical information with partner organizations.
 

“The tool takes in a variety of data inputs in different formats and standardizes that information to generate an output that the partners need to inform their investigations,” Hutchins said. “The information helps them make decisions about where they should be deploying resources to stop the transmission of diseases and help healthcare facilities doing that.”
 

When fully adopted, the platform will help health-related organizations analyze data more quickly and facilitate collaboration among agencies.
 

Also contributing to the work at GTRI are Senior Research Scientist Samantha Lie-Tjauw, Research Scientist Hannah Foster, Research Scientist Emmanuel Donate, Research Scientist Micah Halter, Senior Research Scientist Drew Pihera, Principal Research Scientist True Merrill, and Principal Research Scientist Mike Farrell.
 

The Pathogen Genomics Center of Excellence was created in 2022 to strengthen public health response to disease threats and to support public health workforce development. Now in its third year of operation, the Center was funded by a CDC investment to build a network of centers in five states. Each center includes a health department and one or more academic institutions.
 

Writer: John Toon (john.toon@gtri.gatech.edu)
GTRI Communications
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, Georgia USA

About the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)
The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 3,000 employees, supporting eight laboratories in over 20 locations around the country and performing more than $919 million of problem-solving research annually for government and industry. GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.