Mr. Soichiro Hirai, a first-year doctoral course student of Environmental and Social System Science Course in Department of Engineering, received the Young Scientist Presentation Award at the ICESP2024

12/02/2024 Topics

Mr. Soichiro Hirai, a first-year doctoral course student of River Basin Environmental Science Major, Environmental and Social System Science Course, Department of Engineering (supervisor: Prof. Eiji Haramoto, Interdisciplinary Center for River Basin Environment), received the Young Scientist Presentation Award at the 17th International Conference on Electrostatic Precipitation (ICESP2024) held at Kyoto Terrsa (Kyoto, Japan) on October 28-31, 2024. This award is given to young researchers who give excellent presentations, and four out of 30 young researchers were awarded this time.

The title of Mr. Hirai’s presentation is “Development of a method for detection of indoor SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A virus from electrostatic precipitator of air cleaners.” To contribute to the establishment of a society resilient to infectious diseases, he developed a method to collect and detect viruses trapped to electrostatic precipitators or filters of air cleaners and conducted demonstration tests in hospitals where air cleaners were installed. The tests successfully visualized the number of viruses at each site. 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 deeply honored to have received the Young Scientist Presentation Award.? I am grateful to Prof. Haramoto, Mr. Hosoda, and the staff of the hospitals, and the members of my laboratory for their guidance and support of my research. This research focused on the development of a method for the detection of indoor respiratory viruses attached by the dust collection filters of the air cleaners. I would like to expand our research to make this technology useful for the early detection of cluster infections in hospitals and other facilities.”