Andrew Rainey, PhD, MPH is the senior scientist for the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) laboratory with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). His work involves developing, designing, and coordinating the execution of various lab experiments aimed to help support partners through standardization of lab methods in his field. Andrew also provides technical support to partner laboratories across the country involving lab methods, onboarding new disease targets for testing, as well as the interpretation of lab results for public health action. He is also the primary test developer for many validation work of assays to be used for wastewater surveillance including common and outbreak-related diseases.
Andrew is the primary test developer for the validation of a wastewater assay of measles. This is ongoing work in response to the measles outbreak in the U.S. He has been working in a rapid response taskforce to identify, assess, validate, and deploy a protocol for the measles assay to share with partners across the country to allow them to onboard measles wastewater testing in their communities.
Andrew recently received CDC approval for the first ever wastewater surveillance assay to be shared with partners across the country. He developed the test, validation experiments, and directed the execution of the experiments which led to the first for my team. This has provided a framework and template for his lab and others that wish to be involved with wastewater surveillance in the agency.
Andew says, “my field is relatively new so there is a lot of room for standardization and optimization of methods. This is particularly exciting to me because I get to be involved in the development of so many approaches and methods for the first time, which will start to provide a framework for labs in the future.” He hopes to provide many gains in the field of wastewater surveillance laboratory methods which will eventually lead to much needed standardization in the field. This will provide partner jurisdictions with guidance to allow them to better implement wastewater surveillance in their community and to improve the data generated by that testing to allow for timely, and productive public health action for many diseases.
Andrew reflects on the current state of the public health field, stating that he has “been amazed to see how resilient and flexible public health professionals have been throughout these times. I have seen so many people adapt to funding changes that has affected their staffing and lab capacity, and they continue to work hard to improve public health and I have been very fortunate to work with so many great groups.”