Mr. Soichiro Hirai, a second-year master’s course student of Special Educational Program on River Basin Environmental Science in Department of Engineering, received the Best Oral Presentation Award and the Excellent Young Researcher Award at the VANJ Conference 2023.

Mr. Soichiro Hirai, a second-year master’s course student of Special Educational Program on River Basin Environmental Science in Department of Engineering (supervisor: Prof. Eiji Haramoto, Interdisciplinary Center for River Basin Environment), received the Best Oral Presentation Award and the Excellent Young Researcher Award at the VANJ Conference 2023 held on December 2 (Sat) and 3 (Sun), 2023, at the University of Tokyo.
The title of Mr. Hirai’s presentation was “Monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in hospital sewage.” To apply wastewater-based epidemiology, which aims to determine the incidence of infectious diseases in a region by measuring pathogens in wastewater, to individual facilities, he reported the results of monitoring various viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, influenza A virus, and norovirus, by collecting toilet sewage at a hospital. This research was conducted as a joint research project between Haramoto Laboratory and Raijin-No-Kaze Co., Ltd (Representative Director: Mr. Satoru Hosoda).
Mr. Hirai, said, “I am very honored to receive such a prestigious awards. I am grateful to Prof. Haramoto, Mr. Hosoda, and the staff of the hospitals, and the members in my laboratory for their guidance and support of my research. I will focus on further developing this research in the future.”