Melissa Takahashi said that when she graduated from Waiakea High School on Hawaii island in 2000, she enjoyed chemistry and did well in mathematics but never thought she would be working on cutting-edge research to prevent the spread of global diseases like the Zika virus.

“It’s pretty incredible,” said Takahashi, a lead researcher on a project to create a Zika virus diagnostic test. “I never imagined that I would be working on a technology that would get worldwide attention.”

Takahashi, 33, working in the field of synthetic biology, is among a team of scientists who recently announced a breakthrough in preventing the spread of Zika, a virus that has left pregnant mothers likely to have children with birth defects.

In May, James Collins, Termeer professor of medical engineering and science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, announced a rapid, low-cost, paper-based test to detect the Zika virus. Collins is also a faculty member at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute.

The test costs $1 and can be completed in three hours, increasing the accessibility for testing people in Third World countries.

Collins, who announced the discovery to the news media, said the team was looking for ways to secure public or private funding to make it available to the world’s health workers.

The team embedded synthetic gene networks on small discs of paper that change color when Zika virus is present.

Collins’ lab had previously used the same technique to develop a test to detect the Ebola virus.

Takahashi, who has been working as a postdoctoral associate in Collins’ laboratory at MIT since 2015, said Collins was able to pull together a large team of scientists in order to respond quickly to the increased threat of the Zika virus, including the two scientists who originally developed the Ebola diagnostic.

Takahashi said the team is still at the proof-of-principle stage and is looking into the necessary steps to get the test to the areas that need it most.

Takahashi said that in high school she was interested in chemistry and engineering, and her teacher Mark Kloetzel suggested she look into studying chemical engineering.

She said that in college she became interested in biochemical and biomolecular engineering.

She said she tries to maintain a balanced life, working the typical 40 hours a week.

But her work schedule depends on the project.

“For the Zika project, I was working more like 60 to 70 hours a week, because we felt it was important to address the problem as quickly as possible,” Takahashi said by email.

She said she had a great education at Waiakea along with support from her parents and grandparents, who taught her the importance of hard work.

“It set a good foundation,” she said. “Hard work and persistence can go a long way in science.”