Research that can save lives

She might be 72 but Wanpen Chaicumpa is far from sitting back and enjoying a quiet retirement. Quite the contrary in fact: the sprightly septuagenarian has spent the past several weeks holed up in her laboratory in the Department of Parasitology at Siriraj Hospital actively researching the Ebola virus. Her efforts have not been in vain: she and her team have successfully produced an antibody that can be used in the treatment of this deadly haemorrhagic fever.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been quick to respond to this remarkable breakthrough and is waiting for samples from Wanpen’s team to test and review.

“We are now in the process of selecting the five best of our available antibody clones for the WHO to review,” says Wanpen, adding that her team is expecting to deliver the samples and meet with WHO representatives soon.

The holder of a doctorate degree in microbiology from Australia, Wanpen says she simply couldn’t sit idly by as Ebola started threatening the world. 

“What if Ebola comes to Thailand?” she asks.

“As soon as I started asking myself that question, I knew I had to do something.

In West Africa alone, more than 4,500 people have died from the virus this year, making it the biggest Ebola outbreak ever recorded. The WHO is pessimistic about the future, warning of the potential for 10,000 cases a week by the end of 2014. The virus has started to travel too, killing one man in the US state of Texas and infecting two of the nursing staff who took care of him, though both have apparently recovered. 

But even before that news reached Thailand, Wanpen had decided to form a team and conduct several experiments in search of a possible solution. 

“On some days during our experiment period, we slept for no more than a few hours. Yet we never lost our courage or determination. We knew what we were doing could ultimately benefit mankind,” says the senior researcher of the department, which falls under Mahidol University’s medical faculty at Siriraj.

Wanpen explains that the therapeutic antibody created by the team had several special characteristics. For example, it is very small, is able to enter infected cells and is thus accessible to the intracellular virus proteins. It should thus be able to help stop the virus production in the infected cells.

Describing the therapeutic antibody as “very promising”, Wanpen believes it will likely be produced for commercial distribution within one year. 

And she is quick to give the credit to her dedicated team members for this remarkable success. 

She is also grateful to her family for their support of her work.

“They’ve always understood when I needed to devote so much time to work,” says the mother of two grown-up children.

Asked how her team was able to achieve success in little more than a month, Wanpen replies that everyone in the team has a strong background in antibody treatments. 

“And I’ve been showing all the traits of a researcher since I was a child. At school, I was always the one to raise my hand up and ask questions,” she says. 

The discovery of an antibody treatment for Ebola is not Wanpen’s first success. She has also been recognised for her achievements in identifying an antibody to the H5n1 Influenza virus as well as an antidote to the venom of the Thai cobra.

The recipient of several awards including the Outstanding Researcher Award from the National Research Council of Thailand in 1996 and the Woman in Sciences Special Honour Award from L’Oreal and Unesco in 2003, she says her passion for research become clear while she was working on her doctorate dissertation that looked at intestinal immunity to vibrio cholera infection.

“It broadened my thinking about immunology for human use. I realised then that I wanted to dedicate my entire life to helping people via immunological research,” she says.

Working with often-limited resources and to time constraints, Wanpen admits that she sometimes feels she has no energy left.

“The job of a researcher is tiring but it is also rewarding. I have never felt discouraged because of my passion for the job. The bottom line is that I know my work can save lives,” she says.