Phone

(+886)37206166#35503

E-mail

nidb@nhri.edu.tw

The National Infectious Diseases Bank has become an affiliate member of the WFCC, started from Feb. 2024.

National Health Research Institutes breaks ground for the construction of Bioproduction Plant 2 and National Infectious Diseases Bank

Taiwan's Key Defender Against Emerging Infectious Diseases


Interview with Dr. Guann-Yi Yu from the National Health Research Institutes

National Health Research Institutes Rushes to Build the second Bioproduction Plants for National Vaccine Development


Huey-Kang Sytwu

WHAT'S NEW

  • 20 Mar, 2024 The National Infectious Diseases Bank has become an affiliate member of the WFCC
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  • National Health Research Institutes breaks ground for the construction of Bioproduction Plant 2 and National Infectious Diseases Bank
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Stock

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57

Virus

223

Bacteria

127

Fungi

Technology

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Virus isolation and cultivation

Virus cultivation and isolation are important techniques and foundations in virological research. Obtaining sufficient research materials through virus cultivation can help researchers understand the biological characteristics of viruses and their interactions with host cells, as well as identify possible prevention and treatment methods. However, virus cultivation presents many difficulties. Since viruses are obligate intracellular parasites and lack the ability to replicate and survive independently, they must rely on host cells for replication and proliferation. Researchers must select appropriate cell lines, chicken embryos, or animals for inoculation and provide adequate nutrition and environment to ensure the growth and proliferation of cells and viruses. Ultimately, the virus is collected from the culture supernatant or cells, and subsequently subjected to identification and purification processes. The entire process depends on the expertise and experience of laboratory personnel who must exercise strict control over laboratory conditions to prevent cross-contamination, ensure the quality of materials, and safeguard against the risk of virus leakage and harm to personnel. The NIDB Virus Bank has extensive experience in virus cultivation and provides various important human virus strains for distribution, as well as virus propagation services to meet the needs of academia and industry.

Virus identification

Virus identification is a crucial technique that is frequently employed in medicine to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Virus identification techniques have evolved over time. While traditional methods like immunology (ELISA, IFA, Western Blot), electron microscopy, and PCR were once relied upon, more modern approaches such as rapid screening assays, RT-qPCR, and metagenomics have been developed. Thanks to these advancements, laboratory personnel can now determine the species, quantity, and infectivity of pathogens with greater accuracy, as well as their distribution within the sample. The NIDB virus bank also employs a range of immunological and molecular biology techniques to test the viruses we produced to ensure the accuracy of the biological materials provided to various academic and industrial units.

Pseudovirus propagation

Pseudovirus is a well-established method in virology for studying highly pathogenic viruses. One of these techniques uses lentiviral vectors derived from the HIV packaging systems to create a replication-defective virus harboring/encoding non-self protein(s). The replication defect property of pseudoviruses makes it safe to handle in BSL-2 labs. The NIDB Virus Bank provides high-titer pseudoviruses using lentiviral vectors to support future virus-related research, including but not limited to studying virus entry, tropism, antibody detection, and vaccine development.

Bacterial culture, storage, identification, and testing and analysis of antibiotic resistance.

NIDB collects and stores important drug-resistant bacterial strains of Taiwan. Isolates are subjected to identification, and testing and analysis of drug resistance. Experiments in microbiology, molecular biology, and genomics are additionally performed.

Fungal Culture, Storage, Identification, and Research

The Mycological Resource Bank collects various locally important yeast and filamentous fungal isolates and equipped with knowledge and skills on the following fungi experiments, including fungal culture, species identification of fungal isolates, detection of fungi from clinical and environmental samples, antifungal susceptibility testing using the Clinical & Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) method, antifungal activity testing of novel drugs or compounds, molecular mechanisms of antifungal resistance, genetic relatedness analyses, the zebrafish egg bath infection model, etc.

ONT Nanopore Sequencing Technology

Nanopore sequencing is a third-generation DNA sequencing technology based on the use of nanopores, developed by Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) in the UK. It involves introducing DNA fragments into tiny nanopores and analyzing and sequencing the DNA sequence by measuring the electrical current generated when DNA passes through the pore. Compared to traditional sequencing technologies, ONT nanopore sequencing offers advantages such as high throughput, speed, high accuracy, long read lengths, and sequence independence.

Infectious Disease Animal Model

Mouse models are very useful tools for both studying the pathogenesis of infectious diseases and the preclinical evaluation of vaccines and therapies against different human pathogens. The use of genetically modified inbred mouse strains has allowed the research scientists to define the role of specific host genes in either controlling or promoting disease, and evaluate the efficacy of the potential bioactive agents to against infectious pathogens.

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Service

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NIDB virus bank

NIDB virus bank provides several important viral stocks, modified viruses that express specific receptor and related biomaterials to support virology research and biotech industry development; NIDB virus bank also offers various virus-related experimental services to assist with virology research, product development, and efficacy verification.
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Bacterial resource bank

The bacteria bank of NIDB collects a variety of important pathogenic bacteria, including WHO-prioritized drug-resistant bacteria, domestically unique and emerging drug-resistant bacteria, and conducts value-added experiments (such as genomic sequencing), and is open for application by research and development use.
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Mycology Resource Bank

The Mycology Resource Bank collects various locally important yeast and filamentous fungal isolates, which are open for use to industrial scientists and academic researchers. The bank also provides deposit service for long-term preservation of fungal isolates and several customized laboratory services, such as fungal culture, species identification of fungal isolates, detection of fungi from clinical and environmental samples, antifungal susceptibility testing using the Clinical & Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) method, antifungal activity testing of novel drugs or compounds, the zebrafish egg bath infection model, etc. For more details and contact information, please visit the Taiwan Mycology Reference Center website (https://mycology.nhri.org.tw/).
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NGS Service Platform

Introduction: NGS Service Platform is committed to providing better pathogen research support for customers using modern biotechnology. The emergence of emerging pathogens in recent years has attracted global attention. Our pathogen whole- genome sequencing technology can help customers better understand the characteristics, transmission properties, pathogenic mechanisms, etc. of emerging pathogens, thereby helping to grasp and respond to the risks of emerging pathogens. It is of great significance for disease diagnosis, monitoring, vaccine development, drug development, and global epidemic prevention. With the development of high-throughput genomics technology, we can establish pathogen genome databases more quickly, reducing sequencing costs and time costs. The establishment of a global pathogen genome database and international cooperation will help improve the level and ability of infectious disease control and promote the development of global epidemic prevention. Services: NGS Service Platform provides ONT Nanopore sequencing technology for pathogen whole-genome sequencing services. Through ONT Nanopore sequencing technology for DNA sequencing analysis, we can quickly and accurately sequence the genomes of various pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc., and provide relevant bioinformatics analysis and interpretation services for customers to deeply understand the biological characteristics and pathogenic mechanisms of pathogens, discover new pathogenic factors and variations, and conduct pathogen classification and evolutionary analysis. Target Customers: Our services are suitable for various application fields such as infectious disease research, clinical diagnosis, epidemic prevention and control, etc., to assist customers in better understanding the characteristics and pathogenic mechanisms of pathogens and provide important support for the development and application of vaccines and drugs.
For more information, please contact Ms. Qiu, a research assistant (extension: 35532; kyuu20@nhri.edu.tw). We look forward to providing you with excellent technical support and solutions.
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Infectious Disease Animal Model Service Platform

Most of the pathogens are cleared by the host immunity after infection. To establish the infectious disease animal model, we usually use the immunodeficient mice to allow the pathogens, like viruses, bacteria and fungi can cause infectious diseases. NIDB provides a service to customize different infectious disease mouse models for the evaluation of the pharmaceutical agents. Through out the high quality technique and expertized knowledge, we can help scientists to solve the difficult process in the setup of infectious animal facility. After the detailed discussion, we can conduct the well-designed animal experiments in NIDB/NHRI and provide the reliable results and necessary non-infectious materials to customers.
For more information, please contact Dr. Pan (Ext. 37727; cpan@nhri.edu.tw)
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