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"Join us if you wish to explore our world through the molecular sequences."

–– Pravech Ajawatanawong ––

"Join us if you wish to explore our world through the molecular sequences."

–– Pravech Ajawatanawong ––

About Us

Who am I?

Hello, my name is Pravech Ajawatanawong. In short, you can call me "Ping." It is my nickname, and my friends and colleagues call me that. I am working as an assistant professor at the Division of Medical Bioinformatics, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Thailand. My academic background is in microbiology, particularly evolutionary microbiology.

Microbial diversity is a fantastic outcome of evolution through natural selection. The process itself is very complex and fascinating in the description. One of the powerful tools biologists use to reveal the evolutionary pathway is molecular phylogenetic. We use molecular phylogeny to display the hidden variety of dictyostelid social amoebae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Leptospira spp. in Thailand. My current research involves two main areas: microbial genome diversity and microbial phylogenetic systematics.

Diversity of Dictyostelids in Thailand

Dictyostelid social amoebae, sometimes known as "cellular slime molds," are the most common eukaryotic microorganisms in soil. These microorganisms are essential in nutrient cycling and bacterial population control on the ground. They typically exist as single cell amoeba that feeds on bacteria via phagocytosis. When the food supply runs out, they can send a chemical signal that causes the many amoebae to combine into a multicellular slug-like creature. Once the slug has relocated to a suitable location, it will grow into a fungal-like reproductive structure known as a "sorocarp." Although we were aware of about 150 species, the actual variety in nature is expected to be highly varied. My team and I spent years traveling to several places to collect soil samples and back to the lab to isolate dictyostelids. We build a culture collection of these microbes (more than 400 isolates throughout the country and neighboring countries). A phylogenetic study of those Thai isolates indicated that Dictyostelia in Thailand is unknown and unique, and most might be new species.

Systematic and Genome Evolution of the Leptospires

Leptospira is a genic name of a bacterial spirochete within the Spirochete Phylum. These bacteria were recently reclassified into three clades––pathogenic, intermediate, and saprophytic––based on their ability to cause disease. Leptospira spp. in the pathogenic and intermediate clades can cause severe and mild leptospirosis, respectively. On the other hand, the saprophytic Leptospira is a cluster of non-pathogenic leptospire. We are running a genome sequencing project of 100 Thai Leptospira isolates from several culture collections in Thailand. We are also looking for new collaborators who would like to work on these bacteria's genome evolution and systematics.

Scientists

Mr. Pasin JAMMOR

Mr. Nunthawat JUNDRA

Mr. Jammor (Pond) is a research assistant who joined our team in November 2023. He has a strong background in biochemistry and molecular biology of proteins. His projects involve the evolution of either protein or DNA indels (insertions/deletions), which could be a set of evolutionarily informative markers.

Mr. Nunthawat JUNDRA

Mr. Nunthawat (Gus) is a research assistant. He has background in microbiology and medical mycology. His work is mainly on the diversity of dictyostelid social amoebae (formerly slime mold).

Current Students

Ms. Chonchaya CHIANGSAEN

Ms. Chonchaya joined our team in March 2024 as a Master's student in Bioinformatics. Even though she had a big jump from nursing school into bioinformatics and genome evolution, she proved her intention in the analysis field very well. Her thesis is the genome evolution of teh genus Leptospira.

Ms. Chutiwan PANKRAM

Ms. Chonchaya CHIANGSAEN

Ms. Chutiwan was my 4-month internship student during November 2023 to February 2024. She is quite smart, friendly, and eager to learn a lot of new research experiences. She is now apply to a master progeam in Mahidol University.

Ms. Niramai ARKHOM

Ms. Chonchaya CHIANGSAEN

Ms. Niramai ARKHOM

Ms. Niramai was also my 4-month internship student. She showed her interested in bioinformatics in genomic marker for evolution. Now, she is applying to a master's program in Mahidol University.

Alumni

Mr. Asmatullah USMANI

Ms. Kulawadee WONGANUN

Usmani was a master's student in the Microbiology Program at the Faculty of Science, Mahidol University. He came from Afghanistan and joined us in 2014. He searched for a good pair of primers for a single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) technique for Dictyostelia as his master's degree thesis.

Ms. Kulawadee WONGANUN

Namfon was a master's student who graduated in 2019. She did her thesis on the phylogenetic diversity of dictyostelid social amoebae in the northeastern Thailand, particular in Amnat Charoen province. She found at least seven genera of dictyostelids throughout the region. Of those seven genera, there were 17 strains of dictyostelids identified by 18S rRNA gene phylogeny.

Internship

2022

...

2022

We have five students join our research team. Four of them–Kwan (ขวัญ), Non (นนท์), Gus (กัส), and Aon (อ้อน)–came from King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT). They are in the third year of the Microbiology program and will be the last year of their undergrad. The last one is Nat-นัท. He came from Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology (SIIT).

2020

The first group of internship students when I start my job at the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, MU. We have six students from the Faculty of Microbiology, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) requested to work with us for about two months.