Future

At the present, we are encountering several emerging and re emerging infectious viral diseases causing economic losses and social impacts such as H5N1 bird flu or SARS. Many vaccines or some antiviral drugs against pathogens have been developed, but most of infectious diseases have not been still eradicated so far. Although the reasons of it is unclear, it might be due to emergency of viruses escaped from protective lines. Therefore, I would like to carry out the project with objective as follows:

(1)  To search and obtain highly functional substances from natural sources such as a certain kind of plants to prevent infectious disease and/or pathogens as an alternative to the current vaccines or antiviral drugs. Our final goal is to apply effective substances discovered to prevention of infectious diseases.

• Which plant (material) can be used to inactivate the virus?
• How long time is enough to inactivate virus ?
• What component of the candidate plant (material) is the most effective in inactivating viruses?
• What methodology can be applied  to purify the component from the candidate  plant (material)?
• What about safety for hosts?

(2) To establish a laboratory network between developed and developing countries to share information and cooperate in research work. This network may be essential to search for highly functional substances because the candidate natural sources would be best known by researchers in their own countries. In addition, I also would be able to establish a relationship with other researches for the future research works.