2025-26 Project (Staines & Krishna)

Developing novel diagnostics for the management of Dengue fever in a new era of pandemic preparedness

SUPERVISORY TEAM

Supervisor

Dr Henry Staines at City St George’s
Email: hstaines@sgul.ac.uk

Co-Supervisor

Prof Sanjeev Krishna at City St George’s
Email: s.krishna@sgul.ac.uk

PROJECT SUMMARY

Project Summary

The next generation of point-of-care diagnostic technologies aims to provide accurate disease information in a clinically relevant timeframe at the patient’s side, allowing appropriate treatment there and then. Here, we’ll develop and evaluate diagnostics platforms that can diagnose Dengue infections and determine if the infection will become severe. Currently, Dengue infections are growing to pandemic proportions due to the global movement of people, trade and climate change. The project will use a range of serological and molecular biological methodologies. It is envisaged that the student will spend some time undertaking field studies in Malaysia and will have the opportunity to convert to an iCASE studentship.

Project Key Words

Dengue, infectious diseases, diagnostics, molecular-biology, serology

MRC LID Themes

  1. Infectious Disease
  2. Global Health
  3. Translational and Implementation Research

Skills

MRC Core Skills

  1. Interdisciplinary skills
  2. Quantitative skills

Skills we expect a student to develop/acquire whilst pursuing this project

Laboratory experience of serological or molecular biological techniques including ELISA and PCR would be useful but not essential.

Routes

Which route/s are available with this project?

  • 1+4 = Yes
  • +4 = Yes

Possible Master’s programme options identified by supervisory team for 1+4 applicants:

  • City St George’s – MRes Biomedical Science – Infection and Immunity
  • City St George’s – MSc Global Health, Infection and Immunity

Full-time/Part-time Study

Is this project available for full-time study? Yes
Is this project available for part-time study? Yes

Location & Travel

Students funded through MRC LID are expected to work on site at their primary institution, meeting – at the minimum – the institutional research degree regulations and expectations. Students may also be required to travel for conferences (up to 3 over the duration of the studentship), and for any required training (for research degree study). Other travel expectations and opportunities highlighted by the supervisory team are noted below.

Primary location for duration of this research degree: City St George’s, London

Travel requirements for this project: There is the possibility of traveling to Malaysia to assess tests developed during the PhD in an endemic country.

Eligibility/Requirements

Particular prior educational requirements for a student undertaking this project

  • Minimum City St George’s institutional eligibility criteria for doctoral study.
  • Laboratory experience of serological or molecular biological techniques including ELISA and PCR would be useful but not essential.

Other useful information

  • Potential Industrial CASE (iCASE) conversion? = Yes

PROJECT IN MORE DETAIL

Scientific description of this research project

Dengue is a disease caused by an arthropod borne flavivirus: dengue virus (DENV). Due to the very broad range of the vectors, female mosquitos (primarily Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus), approximately half the global population is at risk of infection. It is currently estimated that between 100 and 400 million human infections occur every year, of which 25% become ill with dengue. There are four different serotypes of DENV (serotypes 1-4). The humoral immune responses to one serotype are ineffective at preventing infection by the other three serotypes, which means an individual can have multiple active dengue infections in their life. There is also evidence that prior infection with one serotype may increase the risk of severe dengue and death.

We are working with several companies to develop point-of-need diagnostic devices that can rapidly identify Dengue infection and the possibility of developing severe forms of the disease.   

Project objectives: 
1. To accelerate development and evaluation of novel Dengue point-of-need diagnostic devices, including a cassette-based molecular assay that uses a portable molecular platform for detecting DENV (and other similar infections such as that caused by Zika virus) and low-cost, lateral-flow based tests 
2. To provide pilot data for larger point-of-need Dengue diagnostics evaluation studies, working with collaborators in Malaysia, and to use conventional diagnostics tests to estimate community prevalences of Dengue infection 
3. To identify biomarkers in the blood of those with Dengue infections that can predict if the infections will become severe for use in new Dengue prognostic tests. 
4. To develop/evaluate novel Dengue point-of-need prognostic tests   

Techniques to be used: 
A range to techniques will the used to develop and evaluate novel Dengue diagnostic/prognostic devices in comparison with “gold standard” laboratory-based assays, including bioinformatics, serology (e.g. ELISA) and molecular techniques (e.g. nucleic acid amplification methodologies – PCR, qPCR, LAMP – and DNA extraction and sequencing). These will be coupled with the development of field studies to establish an understanding of Dengue in Malaysia.   

Confirmed availability of any required databases or specialist materials: 
Our industrial and academic collaborators have already confirmed availability of their devices and blood samples. In particular, we are already undertaking studies of a low-cost platform developed by Global Access Diagnostics, GADx. We have close links with the Universiti Malaya in Malaysia, who we’ll work closely with on this project. GADx have also agreed in principle to converting the studentship into an iCASE award, demonstrating their commitment to the project (with a current MRC LID student, having just spent a highly productive 4-month iCASE placement at their premises in Bedford).   

Potential risks to the project and plans for their mitigation: 
The main risk to the project is that our industrial partners change their scientific direction due to commercial reasons. By working with more than one industrial partner, we aim to mitigate this risk. We are also flexible with regards to assays/devices that we can help develop and evaluate and our industrial collaborators are all embedded in developing diagnostics for low resource settings.   

We also have a number of sites internationally at which field evaluations could be undertaken, if for any reason one site cannot be used (our main field site is in Malaysia).

Further reading

Relevant preprints and/or open access articles:
(DOI = Digital Object Identifier)

Additional information from the supervisory team

The supervisory team has provided a recording for prospective applicants who are interested in their project. This recording should be watched before any discussions begin with the supervisory team.

Staines-Krishna recording

MRC LID LINKS

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