Immunochromatographic Test for Rapid Diagnosis of Pythiosis Pythiosis is a life-threatening infectious disease in both humans and animals living in Asia, the Americas, Africa, and parts of Australia and New Zealand. Human pythiosis is endemic in Thailand where about 80% of the cases are reported. The etiologic pathogen is the fungus-like organism Pythium insidiosum. The disease has high mortality and morbidity rates. Use of antifungal drugs are ineffective against P. insidiosum, leaving radical surgery as the main treatment option. Prompt treatment leads to better prognosis of affected individuals and can be achieved by early and accurate diagnosis. Since pythiosis is being increasingly reported worldwide, there is a need for a rapid, user-friendly, and efficient test that facilitates the diagnosis of the disease. Figure 1. Hypha of P. insidiosum Figure 2. Rapid detection of pythiosis Immunochromatographic tests (ICT) to detect anti-P. insidiosum IgGs in humans and animals were developed. The test is a rapid, user-friendly, and efficient assay for serodiagnosis of pythiosis. The test kit has been mass produced for free distribution to hospitals with medical schools throughout the country. The use of ICT for early diagnosis and monitoring of pythiosis patients helps to save limbs and lives. These studies were published in international journals and the ICT test kits were also patented: A Rapid Multi-Host Specific Immunochromatographic Serodiagnostic Test for...

Development of Broad Spectrum Pan-specific Antivenoms against Venomous Snakes of Asia and Africa Snakebite envenomation is a serious medical problem in many tropical developing countries and was considered by WHO as a neglected tropical disease. Antivenom (AV), the rational and most effective treatment modality, is either unaffordable and/or unavailable in many affected countries. Moreover, each AV is specific to only one (monospecific) or a few (polyspecific) snake venoms. This demands that each country to prepare AV against its local snake venoms, which is often not feasible. The production of a pan-specific antiserum effective against major medically important elapids in Asia was studied. The strategy was to use toxin fractions (TFs) of the venoms in place of crude venoms in order to reduce the number of antigens the immunized horses were exposed to. This enabled inclusion of a greater variety of elapid venoms in the immunogen mix, thus exposing the horse immune system to a diverse repertoire of toxin epitopes, giving rise to antiserum with wide paraspecificity against elapid venoms. The antivenom prepared from this antiserum was expected to be pan-specific and effective in treating envenomations by most elapids in many Asian countries. Due to economies of scale, the antivenom could be produced inexpensively and save many lives. This simple strategy and procedure could be readily adapted for the production of...

Name: Dr. Jomnarong Lertsuwan Office address: Research Laboratory of Immunology, Chulabhorn Research Institute, 54 Kamphaeng Phet 6 Talat Bang Khen, Lak Si, Bangkok 10210, Thailand Tel: +662-5538555 ext. -, +6698-2674675 (mobile) Fax: +662-553-8572 Positions: Researcher 1, Research Laboratory of Immunology, Chulabhorn Research Institute E-mail: [email protected] Website: https://research.cri.or.th/lab/immunology/ Research Interests 1. Autophagy and cell death 2. Purinergic signaling 3. Diabetes Education and Degrees: Khon Kaen University, 2003-2007 B.S. Biology (First Class Honour), Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand, 2007 Center for Translational Cancer Research, University of Delaware, 2009-2014 Ph.D., Biological Science, Laboratory for Cancer Ontogeny and Therapeutics, Center for Translational Cancer Research, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Delaware, USA, 2014 Research Positions Researcher (2014-2018), Researcher 1 (2019-present), Chulabhorn Research Institute, Bangkok, Professional Societies Member: Science Society of Thailand, 2015-present Fellowships Intradepartmental Travel Award, The 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, 2013. University Travel Award, The 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, 2013. Intradepartmental Travel Award, Third International Inflammatory Breast Cancer Conference, 2012. International Awards & Honours First prize poster presentation award, International conference on Innovation in Cancer Research and Care, 2013 First prize of poster presentation, Chulabhorn Royal Academy International Conference, 2017 ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5701-2382 Publications, 2017 – present or all times. Research Articles in International Journals 1. Lertsuwan J, Svasti J, Satayavivad J. Adenosine Induces Autophagy in Cholangiocarcinoma Cells....

Development of a GNA-lectin based immunochromatographic test for rapid diagnosis in human penicilliosis marneffeiPenicillium marneffei is classified as an important emerging opportunistic fungal infection. It has been recently renamed as Talaromyces marneffei. It is the most prevalent systemic mycotic infection in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This infection is endemic in tropical Asia including Thailand, northeastern India, southern China, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Taiwan. The microorganism is the only known temperature-dependent dimorphic fungus of the genus Penicillium.In the purpose of this study, a novel sandwich ICT for screening P. marneffei antigen in urine and/or serum samples will be developed. The monoclonal anti-P. marneffei antigen gold conjugate will be used as specific signal developing agent and Galanthus nivalis agglutinin (GNA), (or polyclonal anti- P. marneffei antigen) immobilized at test line zone will be used as capturing molecule acting as polyclonal anti-terminal mannose. The diagnostic performance of the novel sandwich ICT strip will be evaluated in comparison to that of the hemoculture-confirmed penicilliosis marneffei which is used as the gold standard laboratory diagnosis of penicilliosis marneffei.  

Most antivenoms (AVs) are obtained from the immunization of a large animal (e.g. horse) with only one single venom which resulting to the specific against only a venom, namely monospecific AVs. In case of this AVs, we need to know accurate identification of the culprit snake be bitten. Thus, misdiagnosis could lead to treatment failure and wastage of the expensive AV. To solve this issue, the production of polyspecific antivenom by the immunization with a mixture of venoms from different species of snakes would be useful. Until now, the research on venoms has been continuously developed the efficiency and high dose potency AVs by combination of conventional immunology and advances technology. Therefore, proteomic approach is required for exploration of venom profiles or investigation of the neutralizing toxin by AVs. The challenge of generating effective AVs is universal AV with coverage of all type snakes in a wide geographic area and high efficiency. Furthermore, such AVs would be produced cheaply as a result of economy of scale.  

Snake venoms are produced by snakes for digestion and to rapidly immobilize their prey. Venoms contain various hydrolytic enzymes and toxins e.g., neurotoxins and cytotoxins. Neurotoxic venoms are mainly produced by elapid snakes (cobra, krait, mamba) and sea snakes. These toxins cause neuromuscular blockage, leading to respiratory failure and death. Postsynaptic neurotoxins (PSNTs) from different elapids, although chemically and pharmacologically similar, are immunochemically distinct, so antivenom (AV) against venom from one elapid usually fails to neutralize venom of another elapid, even from the same genus. Thus, each country or region needs to produce its own AV, which is not economically or technically always possible. The lack of effective AVs has resulted in numerous deaths of snakebite victims. Our aim is to produce a pan–specific antivenom against venoms of Southeast Asian elapid snakes. Previously we have established an immunization protocol (WHO Guidelines, 2010), which is highly effective in producing high titer and high affinity antibody against PSNTs of various snakes. Potent polyspecific antivenom has been produced against 3 elapids from Thailand with ED50s comparable to the corresponding monospecific antivenoms. Using this immunization protocol with selected neurotoxins from various elapids, we are studying the preparation of a pan-specific antivenom against elapids of SE Asian countries. If successful, this antivenom could be produced for wide distribution and, with economy of scale, should...

Recently, there is an urgent need for rapid diagnostic tests for new infectious agents in man and animals. Conventionally, these infectious agents are identified either by culture or by using molecular biology techniques, e.g. PCR. These processes are costly and usually take several hours or even days. We have produced luminol encapsulated biotinylated liposome and used it as a generic signal generator, capable of conjugation to biotinylated biomolecules, such as specific microbial oligonucleotides, antibody and antigen. The system has been used to detect specific oligonucleotide hybridization and specific antigen-antibody interaction, and the results have been published.

Human pythiosis is an emerging and life-threatening infectious disease caused by the fungus-like organism Pythium insidiosum. It is endemic in Thailand where about 80% of the cases are reported. The disease has high rate of morbidity and mortality, due to lack of early diagnosis and effective treatment. We have developed a convenient and reliable immunochromatographic test (ICT) for rapid detection of human anti-P.insidiosum IgG, for use in early diagnosis and monitoring of pythiosis patients, resulting in saving of limbs and lives. The test kit has been mass produced for free distribution to 6 hospitals with medical schools throughout the country. This research has been published and a patent application has been submitted. In collaboration with researchers from the Department of Pathology, Ramathibodi Hospital, the ICT has been used to study the seroprevalence of P.insidiosum infection in high-risk hematological patients, and a multi-host ICT for the detection of P.insidiosum infection in human, horse and dog has been developed.  

Development of immunochromatographic tests for simple diagnosis of human gnathostomiasis caused by Gnathostoma spinigerumGnathostomiasis is a parasitic infection caused by the third stage larvae of the helminthes Gnathostoma spp., and is found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. It is a food-borne zoonosis and is endemic in areas where people eat raw freshwater fish or shellfish, especially Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia, Japan, and increasingly Latin America, particularly Mexico. The common clinical features include an intermittent cutaneous or subcutaneous migratory swelling that may persist for many years. In some cases, the parasite can enter other tissues such as the liver, and the eye, resulting in vision loss or blindness, and the nerves, spinal cord, or brain, resulting in nerve pain, paralysis, coma and death.In this project, we propose to study to produce a recombinant protein from a specific antigen and/or synthesize a specific peptide which will be used as a specific antigen of G. spinigerum and to develop a highly specific and sensitive immunochromatographic test for gnathostomiasis.