Abstract: The present invention provides a metal-ion sensor characterized by coating the gold electrode of a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) with melanin, whereby the sensor has an enhanced sensitivity to metal ions.

Abstract: The inventions provides a method for identifying a target virus in an infected subject comprising the steps of designing a pair of degenerate primers corresponding to highly conserved regions of the target virus; designing a pair of species-specific primers according to highly variable sequences within the conserved regions of the target virus; preparing the species-specific probes according to the larger sequence variations within the conserved regions of the target virus, which are amplified with the species-specific primers as obtained; preparing a test sample by amplifying total nucleic acid of the infected subject with the degenerate primers as obtained; contacting the test sample with the species-specific probes as obtained; and detecting a hybridization between the species-specific probe and the test sample, wherein the hybridization indicates the target virus is identified in the infected subject. The primers and probes for detecting a garget virus are also provided.

Abstract: The present invention relates to an ELISA kit for diagnosing infectious bursal disease (IBD). In particular, the present invention provides an indirect ELISA kit comprising recombinant VP2H or VP3 as the antigen for detecting anti-IBDV antibodies in serum samples. The present invention relates to a method for diagnosing infectious bursal disease (IBD) by using the ELISA kit. The present invention also provides a method for preparing the recombinant VP3 protein with high recovery yield in E. coli expression system.