Knowledge that guided development of a COVID-19 vaccine came in part from data gathered through wastewater analysis techniques being used to assesses the prevalence and the rate of the spread of the coronavirus infection in communities. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden (pictured) had been among the first to develop those techniques — at first using the findings to determine how extensively various toxins and pharmaceuticals were impacting specific populations. He turned his attention to detection of COVID-19 as the disease reached pandemic proportions. Now a company that has emerged from the research in ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering, which Halden directs, will be expanding these wastewater studies to help the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services combat the disease.