{"id":77732,"date":"2026-04-20T13:43:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T20:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=77732"},"modified":"2026-04-20T13:54:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T20:54:49","slug":"hepp-virus-grants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/hepp-virus-grants\/","title":{"rendered":"How one NAU researcher studies wastewater to protect Arizonans\u2019 health\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

For most of us, catching a virus isn\u2019t so bad: We rest, we drink fluids and we\u2019re back on our feet in a few days. But some viruses carry heavier consequences than others, and when those viruses spread, public health professionals need to be prepared.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s\u00a0where\u00a0<\/span>Crystal Hepp<\/span><\/b>\u00a0comes in. The associate professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems was recently awarded two grants from the Arizona Department of Health Services, in collaboration with Arizona State University, to carry out genomic surveillance in wastewater and mosquito pools throughout Arizona and other parts of the desert Southwest. Hepp said her research aims to protect Arizonans from illnesses that can wreak more havoc than\u00a0a mild cold.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWastewater surveillance can give us a head start on understanding which viruses are in our community before there\u2019s a big surge,\u201d Hepp said. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0a very effective, noninvasive way of keeping people safe, because it helps our public health partners\u00a0prepare for\u00a0surges with messaging,\u00a0medications\u00a0and other supplies. Similarly, genomic epidemiology focused on mosquito-borne viruses can help narrow down viral hot spots in the environment, allowing for the consideration of more targeted prevention activities.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Scientists have used wastewater to detect the first signs of dangerous viruses since the 1940s, when both mild and severe strains of polio were circulating throughout the globe. Wastewater surveillance most recently made headlines in 2020, when public health agencies shared local wastewater data to warn people and partners about\u00a0possible surges\u00a0in COVID-19.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hepp\u2019s research, done in collaboration with<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/b>NAU<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/b>Ph.D. students\u00a0<\/span>Brooke Schmidt\u00a0<\/span><\/b>and<\/span>\u00a0Paige Hawkinson<\/span><\/b>,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/b>will focus on\u00a0identifying\u00a0surges in infectious diseases that sometimes land Arizonans in the hospital, including respiratory,\u00a0enteric\u00a0and mosquito-borne viruses.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Protecting Arizona\u2019s kids\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

In summer 2022, an outbreak of acute hepatitis swept the globe, sickening more than 300 children in the United States. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested the sick children, the agency found that nearly half were infected with HAdV-F41, a variant of adenovirus that usually causes gastroenteritis.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPublic health agencies were really nervous that this adenovirus was causing all of these pediatric hepatitis cases, which was something they hadn\u2019t really seen before,\u201d Hepp said. \u201cSome think those cases were driven by a coinfection with HAdV-F41 and adeno-associated virus 2, coupled with decreased immunity to several viruses due to reduced exposure during the height of the COVID pandemic. We\u2019re still keeping an eye on HAdV-F41, given the rapid onset of cases in 2022.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Hepp is working with public health agencies to better understand HAdV-F41. She and her colleagues will extract the virus from wastewater samples in rural and urban areas across northern and central Arizona, use those samples to sequence the viral genome and map its circulation across the region over time.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her team will also use those samples to carry out\u00a0additional\u00a0genomic tests to detect viruses that are not\u00a0anticipated\u00a0to be circulating. Those tests could help public health organizations find ways to proactively detect infectious disease threats that may have high potential for causing disease\u00a0but that we\u00a0aren\u2019t\u00a0expecting because we\u00a0haven\u2019t\u00a0seen them before.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With new technology allowing genomicists to detect whole groups of viruses, rather than just a single virus per test, Hepp\u2019s team will also be able to detect surges in all adenoviruses, enteroviruses, coronaviruses and others. There are more than 300 types of enteroviruses, and while some cause little more than sniffles and coughing, others can lead to rashes common in people who have hand, foot and mouth disease, and more rarely, to serious conditions such as acute flaccid myelitis.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHand, foot and mouth disease is a real problem in daycares,\u201d Hepp said. \u201cWe can assist with messaging to let daycares know that we\u2019re seeing an uptick, and then they can implement heightened cleaning strategies to try and decrease transmission.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fighting the bite<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Viruses like yellow fever, dengue and zika have always been a concern in the Valley, where small pools of stagnant water can attract hordes of mosquitoes.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For the last 10 years, Hepp said, summer seasons have alternated between a surge in West Nile virus (WNV) and a surge in Saint Louis encephalitis (SLE). Every summer, one\u00a0went\u00a0dormant while the other surged.\u00a0With summers growing even hotter and monsoon seasons getting drier, something strange is happening to that predictable cycle.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUsually, they\u2019ll oscillate back and forth\u2014one is higher one year, the other is higher the next year,\u201d Hepp said. \u201cWe started to see new seasonality across different years, with the hot summers disrupting the usual cycle. In 2025, we saw that the two viruses were at near identical proportions. That was really striking.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If co-circulating WNV and SLE is the new normal, Hepp said, it\u2019s crucial that the scientific and public health community understands where these viruses are coming from. Are they familiar variants that have circulated in the Valley before? Or are they new variants that were imported from somewhere else? Knowing the answer could help public health officials respond to viral surges more effectively.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople come into contact with mosquitoes near standing water, so they can tell people to \u2018fight the bite\u2019 by taking care of their standing water\u2014their pools, their birdbaths, their fountains,\u201d Hepp said. \u201cWhen these mosquito numbers or viral presence starts to occur,\u00a0<\/span>vector control<\/span><\/a>\u00a0can also carry out insecticide applications near impacted areas to drive down the spread.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By sequencing the genomes of WNV and SLE variants found in Maricopa County, Hepp can work with public health partners to figure out how and when these viruses circulate. That can, in turn, help them prepare and prevent widespread illness.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about trying to focus on specific parts of Maricopa County that the data are telling us to prioritize for mitigation,\u201d Hepp said. \u201cWe can create a \u2018family tree\u2019 of these viruses that shows how they are moving across the landscape, put that information on a map and give that to public health professionals to help them make decisions that can drive down the amount of virus in the environment to reduce human infections.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/span><\/p>\n


\nJill Kimball | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-2282 | jill.kimball@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most of us, catching a virus isn\u2019t so bad: We rest, we drink fluids and we\u2019re back on our feet in a few days. But some viruses carry heavier consequences than others, and when those viruses spread, public health professionals need to be prepared.\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s\u00a0where\u00a0Crystal Hepp\u00a0comes in. The associate professor in the School of…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":77733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}