UC San Diego Receives $15M Cryptocurrency Donation, Largest for Research on Airborne Pathogens

“We are excited to launch this new institute that will allow us to take a multidisciplinary approach to better understand airborne transmission of disease,” said Prather. “Working together with health care experts, infectious disease doctors, engineers, respiratory experts and scientists, we will be developing state-of-the-art measurements and computational tools to study these problems. A major goal is to develop a better understanding of the production and sources of airborne bioparticles and how long they remain infectious.”

Researchers in the new institute will seek to develop a standard for sampling and analyzing airborne microbes and pathogens in viruses, bacteria, fungal spores and pollutants. The team has set up air samplers in Imperial Beach, Calif., at a coastal site that is heavily impacted by pollution runoff and sewage flowing into the ocean. The samplers are being used to study ocean sources of airborne pathogens, as well as to conduct water-to-air transfer of specific viruses to better understand the atmospheric sources of bioaerosols. Once the samplers are tested locally, researchers plan to expand the project to include sampling locations around the world.

In a recent study, the tremendous impact of raw sewage flowing into the ocean has been shown to also affect the air. The Prather group published a study showing that nearly three-quarters of the aerosols near Imperial Beach contained bacteria associated with the raw sewage in the Tijuana Estuary. This study shows that waterborne pollution can be an important source of airborne pollution.

“We are beginning to investigate the aerosolized pathogens from wastewater with a focus on better understanding the health effects of inhaling these bioaerosols and waterborne pollutants,” said Prather. “This will be a new effort combining medicine, atmospheric chemistry, engineering and public health with the goal of ultimately improving indoor air quality for all."

The Meta-Institute for Airborne Disease in a Changing Climate will also leverage UC San Diego’s investment in infrastructure for environmental monitoring for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, as part of its award-winning Return to Learn program.

“We have made tremendous strides in advancing technology to see pathogens in the wastewater and on surfaces, and look forward to extending this to the air we breathe,” said Rob Knight, professor of Pediatrics, Bioengineering and Computer Science and Engineering, and director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation. “Improved techniques for handling low biomass samples and for simultaneous detection of genome sequences and chemicals from the same specimen, as we have been developing for our human microbiome projects, will transform our ability to understand our environmental exposures and their positive and negative impacts on our health.”

The institute will also draw on and expand groundbreaking computational efforts led by Amaro. Researchers will use advanced computational techniques to understand how different production pathways impact aerosol size distribution, composition and viability. They will look at how variables such as composition, temperature, humidity and exposure to atmospheric gasses may affect the viability of pathogens and pollutants in the air.

The Amaro lab and collaborators have already built and simulated the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a respiratory aerosol, giving the first-ever views of an aerosolized virus.

“These simulations are transforming aerosol research because we can see now, for the first time, what is happening to viruses when they are suspended in aerosols,” says Amaro. “We are able to identify the different mechanisms through which different biological organisms may protect themselves in flight.”

As part of the Meta-Institute for Airborne Disease in a Changing Climate researchers will also begin to investigate the health impacts of inhaling the aerosolized bacteria, viruses and waterborne pollution. 

“One of the most exciting aspects of this effort is the bringing together of top scientists from diverse disciplines to answer questions that – until now – few have ever even thought to ask,” said Amaro. “This convergence of expertise will allow us to develop and apply new techniques to answer these questions and, in the process, transform our understanding of airborne pathogens and their impacts on human and ecosystem health.”

The team will use emerging microscopy techniques, such as lattice light sheet microscopy, cryo-electron tomography, and state-of-the-art mass spectrometry to identify and track aerosolized pathogens and pollutants and determine which ones are deposited in the throat and nasal passages, as well as how factors such as particle size, composition and environmental variables may affect how microbes infect the surface of lung cells.

Supporting open-source science

The Balvi Filantropic Fund’s mission, influenced by Buterin’s experience in the open-source software world, includes making scientific knowledge more widely available to the world without barriers to accessing and using it. In support of this, the Meta-Institute for Airborne Disease in a Changing Climate will publish research supported by Balvi’s donation in open-access journals, and make reports and other data available online to the public. Additionally, intellectual property related to research equipment and instrumentation developed with Balvi funds will be placed into the public domain.

“Our goal in establishing the Meta-Institute for Airborne Disease in a Changing Climate is to create a multi-disciplinary center dedicated to open-source science, to further expand our understanding of airborne pathogens and pollution,” said Buterin. “We are optimistic that bringing together top researchers from across disciplines will lead to positive global impact, both for solving the present COVID pandemic and in other areas.”

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