Two university professors win award for finding new ways to tackle disease.

Published on August 1, 2008

Two professors have won awards as outstanding scientists for research that helps to tackle diseases.

Dr Watchara Kasinrerk of Chiang Mai University and Dr Apiwat Mutirangura of Chulalongkorn University will each receive Bt400,000 and HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn will give them shields of honour at Bitec on August 11.

Watchara has conducted research on the development of technologies for the laboratory production of monoclonal antibodies, which can be used to develop highperformance immunodiagnostic kits for several diseases. He has developed strip tests for the rapid screening of Alpha Thalassemia1 carriers. They are to be commercially produced by a private company.

Strip tests

"It is the first Alpha Thalassemia strip test in the world. It is easy and quick to detect. It takes only five minutes and each kit costs only Bt100. Hospitals in Thailand have used the strip test," Watchara says.

Watchara has also created a kit that is used with a complete blood count machine to enumerate CD4+ lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell, for assessing HIV/Aids patients instead of using a flow cytometer.

"My team will develop a kit to test tuberculosis using our monoclonal antibodies," he adds.

Catching cancer

Apiwat is being honoured for research that discovered Epstein Barr virus (EBV) DNA in the serum of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) among patients.

He has also found that the unequal rates of spontaneous mutation of the methylation status of endogenous DNA double strand breaks may help explain how cancer genomes, which have genomewide decreases in DNA methylation levels, mutate faster than normal cells. The mechanism will be important for further research in cancer. "I will continue developing methods of screening cancers, treating cancer using gene therapy and protecting the body from cancer."

Daily Xpress

Wannapa Phetdee