Public Funding for Aquaffirm Limited

Contamination of UK rivers is a major environmental and health issue. A recent report on water quality in rivers from Parliament warns of a 'chemical cocktail' of sewage, slurry and plastic polluting English rivers, putting public health and nature at risk. According to that report, less than one in seven of English rivers meet good quality status, with pollution from among things _antibiotics_ being of particular concern. Indeed, the growing prevalence of antibiotic resistance poses an increasingly serious threat to human health. Although an important driver of antibiotic resistance is continuous exposure of bacteria to sublethal concentrations of antibiotics in natural environments, antibiotic pollutants are not currently tracked around the world. Antibiotics enter rivers and waterways through various routes, including agricultural runoff (from antibiotics used by farmers to treat livestock), sewage-treatment-plant discharge, improper disposal of unused medication, and in wastewater of pharmaceutical manufacturing plants. The potential consequences of antibiotic contamination in waterways are numerous and can be harmful to human health and the environment. A significant consequence is development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria: when antibiotics are present in the environment, bacteria can develop resistance, making it harder to treat infections in humans and animals. Additionally, antibiotic contamination can harm aquatic life and disrupt ecosystems. Antibiotics can alter the balance of bacteria in waterways, which can harm or kill beneficial bacteria and disrupt the food chain. Recent reports from the UK's Environment Agency have concluded that UK river monitoring is "outdated, underfunded and inadequate", with budget cuts to the EA hampering its ability to monitor river quality. What is needed, they add, are better tools for monitoring contamination. To address this need AquAffirm has developed the AquAffirm(TM) platform, the world's first portable, digital, cloud-connected biosensor for real-time measurement and mapping of environmental contamination. This innovative test uses low-cost digital sensors in the form of test-strips, digital reader, and Android smartphone (loaded with the AquAffirm app) for rapid measurement of contaminant levels. Together with its advanced mapping software and associated data analytics, AquAffirm has reimagined the way contamination will be managed - affordably and transparently. In this project the AquAffirm platform, which has already been demonstrated for measuring arsenic in South Asia, will be adapted using synthetic biology to deliver a sensitive biosensor for measuring antibiotics in the environment. New biological chemicals called aptamers will be developed and new chemistries demonstrated. The result will be a significant advancement on current measuring technologies.

The COVID-19 crisis has impacted millions of people in almost every corner of the globe. Together with its impact on public health, the COVID pandemic has detrimentally affected businesses around the UK and indeed around the world. Lockdowns and social-distancing measures resulted in large hits to the British economy. Companies around the UK and Europe (and, indeed, around the world) desperately require new tools to help predict and plan in a new and uncertain post-COVID world -- indeed, what is needed is an interactive online planning tool which brings together sophisticated epidemic modelling with industry-specific financial and operational parameters to enable simulations of things such as likely global supply-chain disruptions, COVID impacts on markets in different countries around the world, or impending human resource-related issues. AquAffirm intends to develop just such an online tool in this project, drawing upon its recent collaboration with one of the world's leading academic epidemiology groups (MRC GIDA at Imperial College), a collaboration which recently produced the world's leading COVID-19 scenario analysis tool (**covidsim.org**). Uniquely calibrated on a daily basis for 135 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) around the world, covidsim provides decision support associated with key aspects of the epidemic to healthcare ministries globally. The global reach of covidsim and its specific targeting of LMICs ensures equality and inclusion; we intend the new web portal (tentatively titled COVID-LIVE and its subscription only sister, COVID-LIVE-PRO) to do the same, with its free-to-access part enabling global scenario planning and its subscription-only part providing advanced business intelligence features. We will also reduce UK carbon footprint by helping to make businesses more efficient.

The WHO estimates that over 140m people in 70 countries regularly drink water contaminated with arsenic, which is poisonous even in trace amounts. Long-term exposure through drinking water can lead to arsenic poisoning, which causes skin lesions, cancers, childhood learning difficulties and, often, death. Bangladesh is one of the worst affected countries where up to 50m people drink water with excessive arsenic. Indeed, the WHO called the situation in Bangladesh: "the largest mass-poisoning of a population in history". Despite the scale of the problem and importance of routine testing of tube-wells for arsenic, current field-tests use colourimetric methods that are slow, imprecise, difficult-to-interpret and not web-connected. AquAffirm is addressing this issue with development of the AquAffirm-As(tm), the first rapid, low-cost, easy-to-use digital field-test for arsenic in drinking water. This novel demonstration-ready test represents a significant advance in management of the arsenic problem: its speed, precision chemistry and digital readout substantially improve upon current tests; web-connectivity and algorithmic data-analysis will enable optimised decision-making regarding locations of new safe wells. Through this Phase I project AquAffirm will extend its network of collaborators within Bangladesh and establish the technical and commercial feasibility of the test through contacts within academia, government and NGOs.