Ginkgo Bioworks and Ceres Nanosciences partner in pathogen monitoring

Ginkgo Bioworks and Ceres Nanosciences, a company developing wastewater testing methods based on its Nanotrap technology, are partnering to bring pathogen monitoring capabilities to laboratories around the world. Supported by the NIH RADx Initiative, Ceres developed their Nanotrap technology for methods to detect a range of pathogens in wastewater samples and has deployed those methods to a network of testing sites in the United States. Recently, Concentric by Ginkgo, the biosecurity unit of Ginkgo Bioworks, as part of a CDC program, demonstrated in a study with partners from XPresCheck and Louisiana State University that coupling Ceres’ aircraft wastewater testing methods with Concentric’s analysis can enable early detection of variants of SARS-CoV-2. Under the partnership between Ceres and Concentric, labs in countries where Concentric has biosecurity programs receive on-site training and the materials needed to implement the standardized and proven wastewater testing workflow from Ceres. Ceres and Concentric have set up labs in the Middle East and Africa through this collaboration.