Christoph Ort, Group Leader and Head of the Urban Water Maangement Department at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology dives into the world of wastewater surveillance or wastewater-based epidemiology, techniques, intricacies, use-cases and the broader societal implications. We trace his journey in leading a "band" of disciplines in supporting society during a crisis moment, namely the COVID pandemic, with valuable information on the spread of infections - all by just holding a "magnifying glass" into our sewer systems.
Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Starsky by Alex Keren (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5vZ3lENfDLjkln8scBJ8mW)
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:59 Guest Intro and a discussion around two props
8:37 Getting into Christoph's story - culture engineering
12:07 The PhD - Dynamics of sewers and micropollutants
19:48 Introducing wastewater based epidemiology or surveillance
21:21 Terminology around WWBE and sewer sociology
23:44 Detecting illicit drugs in sewer systems
26:57 Briefly - how to detect using analytical chemistry methods
32:17 Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic
39:30 The MS2Field - A mobile lab in a trailer
41:30 His vision, the institutional context and where is Christoph heading
45:25 The future of wastewater-based surveillance
46:48 Syndromic surveillance - the indirect but powerful alternative
51:26 Rock n' Roll?
56:08 Q&A Start
56:25 What does innovation mean to you?
58:56 Key event, person, book
1:00:42 Time Management
1:03:20 Favourite Childhood Memory
1:04:33 Biggest challenge in career to date
1:05:55 Advice for young researchers
1:07:39 What would you most like to be remembered for?
1:08:30 Where can people find you?
1:09:19 Final Message
1:09:38 Outro
Detailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.
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