Alvarez, PedroStadler, Lauren2023-08-092023-08-092023-052023-01-30May 2023Senehi, Naomi. "Surface Imprinted Particles for the Removal of Coronaviruses from Aqueous Solution." (2023) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/115063">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/115063</a>.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/115063Coronaviruses are responsible for the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and are the second most common cause of the common cold. Efforts to monitor coronaviruses in wastewater treatment systems have skyrocketed, however, current analytical methods to quantify coronavirus virions require a combination of selective assays (e.g., RT-qPCR) and infectious assays (e.g., TCID50). When combined with devices such as sensors, molecular imprinting is a promising strategy to obtain a direct measure of specific infectious viruses. However, effective imprinting templates are yet to be elucidated. We designed and fabricated glycoprotein imprinted particles (GIPs). GIPs were found to selectively remove two types of coronaviruses (HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-NL63) efficiently from solution with greater than 1-log (90%) removal in under ten minutes. Selective adsorption was maximized at pH 6, the glycoprotein isoelectric point, which highlights the role of electrostatic interactions on separation efficiency and was confirmed using protein modeling. At pH 6, during competitive adsorption, the GIPs adsorbed more of the target virions (HCoV-OC43) than non-target virions (HCoV-NL63) which further promotes the use of glycoprotein templates for effective imprinted particles. Overall, these results highlight the benefits of GIPs and pave the way for imprinting techniques for the separation of other viruses.application/pdfengCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.coronavirusmolecular imprintingwastewaterelectrostaticThesis2023-08-09