US-Egypt Cooperative Research: Development and Evaluation of Various Novel Probes to Detect Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)

描述：该奖项是为了支持一个合作项目，该项目由位于威斯康星州麦迪逊市的Promega公司技术开发团队负责人Said a . Goueli博士和位于埃及开罗的国家研究中心（NRC）人类遗传学系主任、埃及亚历山大市穆巴拉克市遗传工程和生物技术研究所医学生物技术项目代理主任Mostafa Kamel El Awady博士共同完成。这两位科学家计划合成不同的多肽，并产生抗原特异性多克隆抗体，这些抗体可用于使用基于elisa的系统检测丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）感染人群中的病毒存在。待开发的系统对卫生条件的变化和处理程序的波动不那么敏感，因此对欠发达国家的环境更有用。该项目的具体目标是：在内部开发一种基于elisa的检测方法，以筛选一般丙型肝炎病毒感染人群。这将与市售参考试剂盒和基于RT-PCR技术的试剂盒的性能进行验证；开发内部RT-PCR试剂盒，用于对一般hcv感染人群进行分型，并对照参考试剂盒验证结果。范围：该项目将涉及两个具有互补能力的实验室，为两国在一个重要领域进行研究。大部分研究工作将由El Awady博士的团队进行，美国将通过Goueli博士访问埃及和埃及科学家访问Goueli在威斯康辛州的实验室来参与。该提案符合INT在互惠领域支持美国与外国合作的目标。该项目是由美国国立卫生研究院和埃及政府组织的生物技术讲习班产生的。美国国立卫生研究院参与了该项目的评估并建议其支持。该项目由美国国务院管理的美国-埃及联合基金项目提供支持，该项目向两国的科学家和工程师提供赠款，以开展合作活动。

Description: This award is for support of a cooperative project by Dr. Said A. Goueli, Team leader of Technology Development at Promega Corporation, in Madison, Wisconsin, and Dr. Mostafa Kamel El Awady, Chairman, Dept. of Human Genetics at the National Research Center (NRC) in Cairo, Egypt, and Acting Director of the Medical Biotechnology Program at the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology research Institute, Mubarak City, Alexandria, Egypt. The two scientists plan to synthesize distinct peptides, and generate antigen-specific polyclonal antibodies that are useful in detecting the presence of virus in Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)-infected population using ELISA-based system. The system to be developed will be less sensitive to variations in hygienic conditions and fluctuations in handling procedures, and thus more useful in the environment in less developed countries. The specific aims in this project are : develop in-house an ELISA-based assay to screen the general HCV-infected population. This is to be validated against reference kits commercially available and against the performance of kits base on RT-PCR technology; and develop in-house RT-PCR kit for subtyping the general HCV-infected population, and validating the results against reference kits. Scope: This project will involve two laboratories with complementary capabilities to conduct research in an important field for both countries. Most of the research work will be conducted by Dr. El Awady's team, with US participation through a visit by Dr. Goueli to Egypt, and visits by the Egyptian scientist to Goueli's laboratory in Wisconsin. This proposal meets INT objective of supporting US-foreign collaboration in areas of mutual benefit. The project was generated as a result of a workshop on biotechnology organized by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Egyptian Government. NIH was involved in the evaluation of the project and in recommending its support. This project is being supported under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, administered by the US Department of State, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out cooperative activities.