MEDICAL MOLECULAR BIOLOGY RESEARCH UNIT

The Medical Molecular Biology Research Unit focuses on research and development on malaria and tuberculosis. The main goal of the malaria research program is to develop antimalarial drugs to overcome multi-drug resistant malaria. The main strategies evolve around rational drug design and the synthesis of new effective antimalarials based on the structures of the drug targets. The research on tuberculosis involves the development of high-throughput drug screening, drug target identification and validation, study of emerging drug resistance mechanisms, as well as the variation of the gene regulatory networks among isolates of M. tuberculosis and their relationship to drug resistance and pathogenesis.

Areas of Expertise

• Molecular biology and protein engineering
• X-ray crystallography/molecular modeling and drug design
• Combinatorial chemistry

Director
Dr. Sumalee Kamchonwongpaisan

Key Researcher
Prof. Yongyuth Yuthavong