Maria Reis, leader of the Biochemical Engineering Lab at UCIBIO-NOVA, integrates a consortium that has been awarded half a million euros, for 6 months, to develop a project aiming to detect SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater. The project “Eco2Covid - Desenvolvimento de plataformas de deteção e monitorização em águas do Coronavírus” by ANI - National Innovation Agency and the consortium includes CENIMAT-NOVA, Tejo Atlântico, University of Coimbra, and INOVA+.
The project aims “to create an innovative platform based on nanotechnology for detecting the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in wastewater, boosting the existing knowledge of the various partners of the consortium in the field of wastewater pretreatment and the development of biosensors”, explains Maria Reis, coordinator of the research activities of this project at UCIBIO and principal investigator of various European Research Projects in industrial and environmental biotechnology.
This platform predicts the detection of the virus in an efficient, in-situ, and low-cost way, which was not possible until now. This tool also aims to be safe, easy to use by the different stakeholders in the process, and mostly made up of biodegradable materials, having a reduced environmental impact, being one of the project’s concerns.
In the news:
Teste inovador para detetar covid nos esgotos avança, Expresso
Eco2Covid: Projeto português para detetar o coronavírus nos esgotos, pplware