Research Highlights

Viral diseases are a major cause of shrimp production loss worldwide. Several attempts have been made to find efficient approaches to eradicate viral infection.

Cassava is one of the most economically important crops in Thailand. During the years 2009-2010, Thailand produced some 22 million tons of cassava and exported it in the forms of cassava flour, chips and pellets generating a total income of about 66 thousand million baht.

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.

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.

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.

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.

(Mapping Analogous Nuclei Onto Residue And Affinity) for identifying protein-ligand fragment interaction, pathways and SNPs.

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.

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

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?

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

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. Thank to an invention of a strip test for rapid detection of hemoglobin Bart’s, screening for the alpha thalassemia 1 carrier can be simply done. A multicenter validation study of this immunochromatographic strip test has shown that the test is highly sensitive and specific, thus rule out mass populations for further alpha thalassemia 1 detection by PCR-based analysis.

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.

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.

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.

We know Jason and the Argonauts who retrieved the Golden Fleece and fought hydra, cyclop and all those monsters. But, this is about another kind of Argonaute, which is a key protein in RNA silencing.

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.

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.

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