Team

Vi-Sense

Topic

Diagnostic platform for mosquito-borne viral diseases

Abstract

Dengue fever is a life-threatening mosquito-borne viral disease caused by Dengue virus (DENV) infection. The official procedure of viral isolation and identification is time consuming. Rapid diagnosis of typical and asymptomatic dengue infection is essential for disease treatment and spreading control. However, the accuracy and reliability of various commercial rapid test are still not satisfying. Thus, the goal of the main project of the first year is to develop a rapid, sensitive, and accurate.

Reverse Transcription Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification (RT-LAMP) diagnostic platform for on-site dengue virus (DENV) detection. In the first subproject, we plan to collect reference strains, clinical plasma specimens and their cell passage (P1), and identify them by official standard methods and FDA-approved rapid tests. In the second subproject, we plan to accomplish the optimal design of RT-LAMP primers to isothermally amplify specific NS5 gene sequence of four types of dengue virus. In the third subproject, we plan to purify dengue viral RNA by using micro magnetic beads (<10 mins) and integrate with the home-mode recipe for the real-time detection of RT-LAMP by the optical platform.

Keywords—Dengue virus, loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), magnetic bead-based purification, pH sensitive optical detection.