Vanny Narita

Biography

Currently, I am a Government-led Innovation Program Specialist, National Innovation Council of the Republic of Indonesia. The Council is a newly established council, which is an independent body of 30 prominent scholars who are directly chosen by the President of Republic of Indonesia and is expected to boost innovation in Indonesia. I am also an assistant professor at University of Al Azhar Indonesia, and a visiting lecturer at several top universities in Indonesia such as University of Indonesia. I have been the Chief Engineer of Dengue Biosensor Research Team at Center for Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology, Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology. My research focuses on expression of valuable recombinant proteins, such as dengue and hepatitis virus proteins. A large focus of my research team has been on developing diagnostic systems of infectious diseases, especially neglected diseases such as dengue. Expressed recombinant dengue proteins, whose genes were originated from Indonesian dengue virus strains, are used for rapid test or biosensor materials. These dengue diagnostic systems are expected to be able to detect a high-risk dengue infection at an early phase of infection. An effort is made to build up a database of information about virus proteins especially those of dengue. The database contains IndonesiaÕs dengue strain genomic sequencing results and also sequencing data freely available from other research activities. This database will be a fruitful resource for molecular biology information about dengue virus, which can also be used by other groups as a single point of entrance to information about current dengue research. The most recent research is a social approach study on Global Information System analysis on dengue spreading in communities. Survey on social habits, economy status, and environmental issues were performed, and the data will be converged into a comprehensive dengue control.