List of Approved Projects

Funded Projects List of Approved Projects

1. A high throughput detection method for Hepatitis B virus mutations among the Chinese population   Funds : Research Fund for the Control of Infectious Diseases (investigator-initiated projects) Project Status : Closed Reference No. : 01030072 Project Title : A high throughput detection method for Hepatitis B virus mutations among the Chinese population Applicant(s) : Wong RNS(1) Chui AKK(2) Affiliation(s) : Department of Biology, Hong Kong Baptist University(1) Department of Surgery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong(2) Approved Amount (HK$) : $804,800.00 Abstract : Hepatitis B (HB) is one of the major infectious diseases of mankind. According to the data from WHO, there are approximately 600,000 cases per year of death related to HBV infection worldwide. An estimated 93% of these deaths are chronic HBV infected patients and die from cirrhosis, liver failure or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In fact, the prevalence of chronic HBV infection is very high in most of Southeast Asia and China. Thus, it may pose a serious health burden to the social affairs because most of the infected patients have the tendency to become chronic carriers and receive long-term medication. Vaccination and effictive medical screening both play an important role in disease surveillance. Over the past decade, increasing attention has been focused on the contribution of HBV variants to the clinical course of acute or chronic infection. Recently, several lines of evidences indicated that there are increasing number of mutations in the HBV genome which may lead to enhancing the virulence, resistance to antiviral therapies, evading from host immune system and even progression to HCC. Up to now, the most worrisome is that mutations have been found on the most common diagnostic markers mainly HB surface antigen (HBsAg) and HB core antigen (HBcAg) and as a result to give false negative in the test. To overall, these make us alter the crisis of the transmission and the serverity of the disease can be significantly enhanced by the HBV point mutations. In this proposal, a high throughput microarray platform based on Arrayed Primer Extension (APEX) technology will be constructed to detect multiple point mutations in the entire HBV genome. Since microarray is a powerful tool to array DNA or oligos on a glass slide, genetic mutations can be screened in single experiment to facilitate disease diagnosis and monitoring. The deliverable will be a chip containing at least 11 representative genetic mutation points of HBV genome for high throughput screening. Currently, no diagnositic test is available for multiple mutations detection on HBV. We believed that our system can provide compehensive information to the medical partitioners to have better understanding on the course of disease in the patients and also faciliate their medical prediction for enhancing the therapeutic efficacy. Besides, this method can be launched as a medical screening service to support the local medical community in the near future. Keywords : Hepatitis B virus, Mutation detection, Molecular diagnosis, Microarray, Arrayed Primer Extension Instruments : Remarks : Dissemination Report : [PDF file] 01030072dr.pdf Final Report : [PDF file] 01030072fr.pdf [add to bookmark]

[Previous Page] [Back to Top]

[Search for Approved Projects] [List of Approved Projects] [List of RFCID - Commissioned Projects]

[Home] [Welcome] [What's New] [Call for Application] [Funds] [Research Grant Review] [Funded Projects] [Events] [Publications] [Useful Links] [Contact Us]

[Government Information Centre] [Brand Hong Kong]

2004 copyright | Important Legal Information and Disclaimer

Last revision date: 15 August 2006