The problem
To collect meaningful biological samples from wild animals, such as saliva and blood, scientists need to manually or chemically restrain the animals. These actions cause an elevated risk of animal morbidity and mortality, as well as exposure risks to humans.
While there has been some work towards remote collection, those applications are limited to human-habituated animals, and the researchers must be on site to immediately collect the samples.
Our solution
S.W.A.B. is an innovative and unique method to safely and autonomously acquire biological samples from wildlife as sentinels for infectious diseases at high-risk remote locations.
Our method facilitates rapid and cost-effective pathogen risk assessment and inform countermeasure strategies to protect wildlife, domesticated animals, and humans.
The design of the sample collector will be made available as open-source code, designed to be fabricated by researchers and citizen scientists with no engineering training, and therefore facilitating large-scale dissemination of the technology.
Sponsors
Revive and Restore
provides funds to researcher partners worldwide to develop new tools for the Genetic Rescue Toolkit. They support early-stage, proof-of-concept projects that translate advanced biotechnologies to wildlife conservation applications.
Wild Animal Initiative
conducts scientific research, makes grants, and provides support for scientists studying wild animal welfare. Their mission is to accelerate science that helps wild animals, and their core values are social equity, organizational transparency and scientific rigor.
Yale Planetary Solutions
is a multidisciplinary university priority. The project seeks to leverage Yale’s scientific research excellence and common interests between all schools and departments to yield breakthroughs across disciplines, by supporting research across the institution.