{"id":13077,"date":"2018-11-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.alj3.clients.lemonhq.io\/perspectives\/j-wafs-action-wearable-testing-kit-check-e-coli-water\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T06:02:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T06:02:26","slug":"j-wafs-action-wearable-testing-kit-check-e-coli-water","status":"publish","type":"perspectives","link":"https:\/\/cms.alj3.clients.lemonhq.io\/en\/perspectives\/j-wafs-action-wearable-testing-kit-check-e-coli-water\/","title":{"rendered":"J-WAFS in action: A wearable testing kit to check for E. coli in water"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeffrey Ravel, Professor and Head of the MIT History Faculty, and Susan Murcott, an environmental engineer and Lecturer in MIT\u2019s D-Lab, are leading a project to develop and market simple, low-cost kits to test for the presence of E. coli in drinking water. \u00a0The initial focus is on communities in Nepal, with a medium-term goal of distributing the kits in other markets.<\/p>\n

Opening Doors spoke to Jeffrey (JR) and Susan (SM) about the project and its aims.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>What is the title of your research project?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JR: The project is called \u201cManufacturing and marketing E. coli test kits to promote safely managed drinking water and improved public health in Nepal.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

What issue are you seeking to address?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SM: To provide some context, one of the UN\u2019s Millennium Development Goals<\/a> was around access to \u201cimproved\u201d water.<\/p>\n

\"Susan

Susan Murcott is a water\/wastewater engineer and mentor to a generation of MIT students whose creative innovations are at the interface of water, sanitation and hygiene solutions for the bottom billion.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s important to understand, however, that the term \u201cimproved\u201d refers to the infrastructure that delivers the water \u2013 like a household connection, a public standpipe, a bore hole or a protected well \u2013 not the quality or safety of the water.\u00a0 So in India, for example, there is five hours of piped water supply a day, on average, but that doesn\u2019t mean the water is safe to drink. \u00a0The only way to determine water safety is to test it.<\/p>\n

The UN\u2019s Sustainable Development Goals<\/a> took this ambition one step further and set a target to improve access to \u201csafely managed drinking water\u201d by 2030.<\/p>\n

One of the criteria that defines water safety is whether it has been tested for E. coli<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where our project to produce and distribute a simple, low-cost E. coli <\/em>test fits in to the global picture.<\/p>\n

There are already other kits that perform a similar task, but for one reason or another, they are not always suitable for different contexts, such as remote off-grid locations that don\u2019t necessarily have electricity or high-quality testing labs. \u00a0Some of the reasons for this include portability, complexity, cost, ease of use, accuracy and so forth.<\/p>\n

Our kit is designed to overcome these challenges by being portable, low cost at under at most US$ 1 per test, easy to use and highly accurate.<\/p>\n

\"Jeffrey

Jeffrey Ravel, Professor and Head of the MIT History Faculty<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

In simple terms, can you briefly describe your proposed solution?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SM: The testing kit actually performs two tests. \u00a0One is a simple presence\/absence test for E. coli<\/em>. \u00a0It simply tells you if there is E. coli<\/em> present in the water or not. \u00a0The second element is a quantitative test, which gives us much wider information on the nature of any water contamination.<\/p>\n

JR: The really innovative bit of our kit, though, is the body belt incubator. \u00a0Once the water has been mixed with the test, the phials are incubated in a special body belt incubator that users wear for 24 hours. \u00a0The users\u2019 body heat provides the heat required for the chemical process of the testing. \u00a0This means you don\u2019t need to rely on an external power source to test the safety of the water. It can literally be done anywhere.<\/p>\n

SM: That\u2019s right. The tests themselves are not new. \u00a0The innovation is in bringing together these existing elements into a wearable, low-cost testing kit and then, crucially, distributing it to the regions in Nepal where water safety is a priority issue.<\/p>\n