Ultra sensitive ELISA for dengue fever virus

Prof. Etsuro Ito in Waseda University has long attempted to develop ultrasensitive measurement methods to detect trace amounts of proteins and nucleic acids. For example, he has succeeded in measuring very low concentration of adiponectin in urine. Adiponectin is known to be involved in diabetic mellitus. Thus, the urinary adiponectin can be used for assessment of chronic kidney disease by diabetic mellitus, and the measurement of urinary adiponectin is non-invasive way. When I was a summer course student in Prof. Ito’s Lab in the last year, I had a chance to participate this project and I was so happy.

During my master course, I want to learn his techniques and further develop these. After learning these, I would like to apply these techniques to the ultrasensitive measurements of specific protein and specific DNA of “dengue virus”. Dengue virus causes dengue fever, which is a big problem in my home country, Taiwan. In every week during a summer season in Taiwan, tens to hundreds of new patients suffering from dengue fever appear.

Dengue virus belongs to RNA virus called Flavivirus. Flavivirus also includes zika virus, encephalitis virus, chikungunya and others, it is thought to be hard to discriminate these viruses. To our knowledge, there are no rapid tests for these viruses specifically. However, Prof. Ito has already obtained state-of-the-art antibodies from a Japanese antibody company that were specific for dengue virus. He has also contacted Taiwan Center for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) and some hospitals in Taiwan to obtain the patient samples. That is, after I become a Lab member of Prof. Ito, I can start the experiments soon and obtain the fruitful results.

From the above reasons, I expect that during the semesters I will learn a lot and do the basic experiments in Waseda University and during the summer season I will go to Taiwan to do the applied experiments in some hospitals.
Needless to say, I would like to learn basic and applied biology very hard in my master course in Waseda University.

Jyun Hao Chang