Research Highlights

Vitamin D is one of the 13 vitamins that we need to maintain our health and wellbeing. We can obtain vitamin D from our diet (oily fish, liver, egg yolks) and additionally we can produce vitamin D from cholesterol when we expose our skin to sunlight. While vitamin D is well known as playing a role in building healthy bones through regulation of calcium and phosphorus, evidence is emerging that vitamin D may play a role in combating infections.

Infections with the dengue virus are a significant problem, not only in Thailand, but also in many tropical and sub-tropical countries around the world and there is currently no preventive vaccine or effective drug for treatment.

Most of us understand the Darwinian concept that mutations and selective force gradually diversify living organisms.

How do viruses make more viruses in host cell? For RNA viruses, the viral RNA-copying enzyme (RdRp) must first latch on to a specific region of RNA, and then proceed to churn out a complete copy of the virus.

Analysis of the Drosophila melanogaster genome database identifies a diverse superfamily of glutathione transferases (GSTs).

Most famously, all viruses require host ribosomes to generate more viral proteins. There are many more examples of such parasitic behavior, and certainly more to be discovered.

Stress can cause many harmful effects to our body including our brain. Stress induces release of glucocorticoid hormone, which prepares our body to cope with stress.

You may know that almost all shrimps you are eating are produced by farming. But, do you know that in order to produce shrimp eggs and hatchings, eyestalks are cut from mother shrimps to induce them to lay eggs?

Neurogenesis, a process of generating functionally integrated neurons from progenitor cells, was traditionally believed to occur only during embryonic stages in the mammalian CNS.

Shrimp aquaculture industry in Thailand has been rapidly expanded in the last few decades generating an annual income of several hundred thousand Baht to the country.

Thalassemia is a wide spread genetic disease presented as chronic anemia. Hemoglobin Bart’s hydrops fetalis, the most severe form of thalassemia, is fatal and uniformly results in still birth when there is a homozygous defect of alpha thalassemia 1.This can be avoided if parents who are carriers for the alpha thalassemia 1 know their genetic status.

Fah talai jone is a well known medicinal plant in Thailand. The leaves are traditionally used to make an exceedingly bitter tea for treating a number of ailments including fever and infections. Because of the extremely bitter nature of the tea, the plant is often taken nowadays in capsule form.

A new study by Assoc. Prof. Apinunt Udomkit found that Bursicon promotes development of eggs in shrimp. Bursicon is an insect hormone known to be involved in darkening of cuticle, wing expansion, and molting.

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by the formation of senile plaques in the brain. These extracellular deposits are mainly composed of the abnormally aggregated Ab peptides, which production is under the control of a set of enzymes named secretases.

Melatonin, a neurohormone secreted mainly by the pineal gland, has a variety of physiological functions and neuroprotective effects.

MANORAA: Mapping Analogous Nuclei Onto Residue And Affinity: A Server for Molecular Design
http://manoraa.icbs.mahidol.ac.th/Manoraa/home.php

Why do we want to know this? It is becausetesting new substances in animals is an essential step in developing new antiemetics – drugs that reduce nausea and vomiting.

An efficient RNA interference (RNAi) based approach for shrimp viruses inhibition have been developed for a decade. However, the bottle neck of this approach is the application into a farm.