Thesis Defense Announcement
To:  The George Mason University Community
Candidate: Ji-Hyun Lee

Program: M.S. in Biology



Date:   Wednesday November 15, 2017

Time:   10:00 AM

Place:  Bull Run Hall, Room 256
             George Mason University
             Science & Tech Campus<http://www.gmu.edu/resources/welcome/Directions-to-GMU.html>




Title: “Application of Hydrogel Nanoparticles for Detection of Dengue Virus”
Committee Chair: Dr. Aarthi Narayanan
Committee Members: Dr. Kylene Kehn-Hall, Dr. Alessandra Luchini


This is a public defense and all are invited to attend.



Abstract:
Dengue is one of the most important mosquito-borne viral diseases that can be tracked hundreds of years ago. Over the years it has been widely distributed with rapid number of incidents and epidemics occurring. Factors, such as misdiagnosis, have been a contributing problem. Although there are diagnostic methodologies to detect dengue, many are not sensitive enough to detect early infections, making it possible to have many false-negatives. With no FDA approved vaccines or therapeutic options for treatment, there has been increasing interest to find a sensitive assay to detect the virus, especially at the early stages of infection. Although viral titers at the early stages of infection is too low to diagnose with current diagnostic methodologies, Nanotrap sample preparation technology have the capacity to enhance detection at the lower limits of the virus while excluding any high abundance proteins that interfere with detection. It has been previously found Nanotrap particles without a shell could effectively capture and enrich small targeted analytes better than Nanotrap particles with a shell. In this study, four types of Nanotrap particles were screened to determine which best enriches DENV-2: CN1030, CN2010, CN2080, and CN400. CN1030, Nanotrap particles without a shell, have been found to have the best enrichment of DENV-2 from our initial Nanotrap screen with a 10-fold enrichment. Using CN1030, we further tested limit of detection range and compared the detection range of the DENV-2 with and without CN1030. We found in absence of CN1030, DENV-2 was detected at 1.00E1 PFU/mL, but with CN1030 DENV-2 was detected at 1.00E-1 PFU/mL; this shows a 100-fold enrichment in detection.

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