Dr Chunlin Wang from Stanford University and Dr Jian Han from Hasson Alpha Institute of Biotechnology visits GIBH

In response to the invitation of distinguished research fellow Dr Ling Chen from GIBH, Dr Chunlin Wang from Stanford University and Dr Jian Han from Hasson Alpha Institute of Biotechnology visited GIBH on the 14th of March 2013. During their visit at GIBH, Dr Chunlin Wang gave a presentation on: “Profiling our immune defense system of the viral threat with next generation sequencing” and Dr Jian Han gave a presentation entitled “Towards the Ultimate Diagnostics: Immune Repertoire for Biomarker Discoveries”. The meeting was chaired by Dr Ling Chen.

During his presentation, Dr Chunlin Wang highlighted the new generation of high-throughput sequencing (NGS) technology at the Genetic Research Center of Stanford University. The new generation of NGS has higher resolution, lower error and is much more affordable compared with current NGS technology. In addition, the new NGS technology has great application prospects in the field of medical diagnosis.

During the meeting, Dr Jian Han introduced his current work to the participants, namely using Multiplex PCR technology combined with a new generation of HGS platforms and the biological information technology research immunohistochemistry library (TCR, BCR) as well as disease mechanisms to look for methods to diagnose diseases, evaluate treatment and to develop new therapeutic approaches. In 2008, Dr Jian Han invented the amplicon rescued multiplex PCR for infectious diseases diagnosis and immune repertoire analysis. This technology can simultaneously detect multiple target molecules in a reaction system and can obtain semi-quantitative test results, therefore solve the problem of target compatibility. This technology has been applied to several market-oriented projects by Dr Jian Han, such as iCubate and iRepertoire.

The meeting was attended by many scientists from GIBH and other Institutions. After the presentation, Dr Chunlin Wang and Dr Jian Han had in depth discussion with the participants regarding discover new viruses using HGS, molecular differential diagnosis technology platform and product development, as well as the establishment of immunohistochemistry library etc.