ProjectsEnvironment

Research Overview

Infectious and non-communicable diseases are causing enormous hardships throughout the world and continue to have a tremendous impact on economic and social activities. This project aims to establish environmental sentinel technology for real-time monitoring of biomarkers in environmental samples and to establish a framework for disseminating and sharing the obtained information with regards to the types and amounts of disease-related biomarkers in environmental samples, including sewage, for public health or disease control in human society.

Research Features

Many technologies have been reported to recover, concentrate, and detect genes derived from pathogens related to infectious diseases in environmental samples such as sewage. In contrast, the development of biosensor technology to detect disease-related biomarkers in environmental samples is a research topic that is only being addressed worldwide in this project. In addition, a system to share disease-related information obtained from environmental samples in real time has not yet been realized. This project is the first in the world to research the highly original topic and aims to lead the world in the utilization of disease-related information obtained from environmental samples, including sewage, in society, and to create a research hub where knowledge and technology can be accumulated.

Expected Outcomes and Developments

Through the progress of this project, highly reliable biosensor technology will be widely deployed as a social sentinel (environmental sentinel) to estimate the number of patients with infectious and non-communicable diseases in the target community based on the monitoring results obtained, and this information will be disseminated to society, thereby establishing a new social system that encourages the entire community to take action for disease prevention. A new social system that encourages the entire community to take action to prevent disease will be established. Such a new social system could be introduced to communities that value the wellbeing of their residents, both in developed and developing countries, as it is thought to be capable of early detection of infectious diseases such as COVID-19, which humanity has never experienced before. From the outset, we plan to work toward international deployment, with the goal of introducing the system in multiple countries, including Japan.