A simple air filter running for hours, days or weeks can pick up signs of nearly every species that grows or wanders nearby.
“When we started, it seemed like it would be hard to get intact large fragments of DNA from the air. But that’s not the case. We’re actually finding a lot of informative DNA,” Duffy said.
This powerful analysis was paired with impressive speed and efficiency. The team demonstrated that a single researcher could process DNA for every species in as little as a day using compact, affordable equipment, and software hosted in the cloud. That quick turnaround is orders of magnitude faster than would have been possible just a few years ago and opens up advanced environmental studies to more scientists around the world.
The same tools can potentially identify sensitive human genetic data, which is why Duffy and his collaborators have called for ethical guardrails for the rapidly developing field of eDNA.
“It seems like science fiction, but it’s becoming science fact,” Duffy said. “The technology is finally matching the scale of environmental problems.”
DNA floating in the air can track wildlife, viruses—even drugs
Wow, this will change a lot.