DNA-sequencing technology turns sewage into a powerful window into community nutrition in North Carolina
Researchers at Duke University School of Medicine and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have developed a DNA-sequencing platform that reads plant and animal DNA fragments in wastewater to reveal detailed patterns in what entire communities eat.
The platform, called FoodSeq-FLOW, was developed by senior author Lawrence A. David, PhD, of the Duke Microbiome Center and the “Edible Atlas” lab, and lead author Mengyi Dong, PhD, now at Virginia Tech’s Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center. The team analyzed wastewater from 19 North Carolina communities — representing roughly 2.1 million people across eight treatment plants in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Beaufort-Carteret, and Greenville-Pitt regions — collected during June through December 2020 and again in June 2021.
The dietary signatures that emerged tracked closely with demographic and geographic differences: wealthier neighborhoods showed more traces of hops, a marker of beer consumption, while areas with larger foreign-born populations showed more tropical fruit and bean DNA. Coastal communities showed diets rich in seafood such as drum, Spanish mackerel, and triggerfish, while inland communities relied more on farmed fish like Atlantic salmon.
To validate the method, the researchers compared the wastewater-derived DNA patterns against dietary data from 14 stool samples collected in Durham in June 2021, and found the two data sources matched closely.
Rachel T. Noble, PhD, a marine sciences professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and co-author on the study, said the method could offer public health officials a low-cost way to track community nutrition without relying on self-reported surveys.
Erin Dooley, co-founder of BLK South, discussed how the findings resonate with her own Durham neighborhood of Hayti/Grant Street, where residents have discussed opening a Black-owned grocery store to address a local food desert.
Additional authors on the study include Thomas Clerkin, Sharon Jiang, Nolan Ives, Olivia W. Osborne, Michelle Kirtley, Anne E. Bauer, Katherine Anderson, and Martin D. Smith. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Schmidt Sciences, the Gerber Foundation, Nature-Springer, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the Duke Microbiome Center and its CTSA, and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2530704123
Article Title: Dietary DNA in municipal wastewater reveals signatures of wealth, immigration, and coastal proximity
Publication Date: July 20, 2026
Source: EurekAlert