We welcomed Nancy Chen Zhenying, an undergraduate student from the Department of Biology, Emory College of Art and Science, Emory University to our department from June, 6 to July 31, 2023 under the uTokyo Amgen Scholars Program.

The 8-week program enables students from different countries to experience basic science research at the University of Tokyo as well as Japanese culture and language.
Nancy was short-listed from over 90 candidates that had applied for the program at our department. Her research interest in antibody decay complements with the research themes in our lab, and her enthusiasm in conducting research in our lab was one of the reasons she was shortlisted for the program.

At our laboratory, Nancy worked with our technical specialist, Kazumi Haga, on developing tools that can rapidly determine neutralizing antibodies against flaviviruses. The outcome of the project was the development of an in-vitro micro-neutralizing test that will be useful in resource limited settings and in experiments with limited sample volume.

While Nancy’s stay with us was short, we were grateful for the opportunity offered by the uTokyo AMGEN Scholars Program that had allowed new collaborations and, for Nancy, to experience “wet-lab” and to gain new skill-sets in virology research.
また会いましょう！

Nancy (leftmost) with our lab members enjoying Japanese green tea, matcha and Japanese sweets, June 2023.