Thai student picks up the lab

A fungus under study can cause a disfiguring, fatal disease.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- When Sophit Thirach is at Youngstown State University, Little Jimmy's Pizza stocks up on ketchup packets.
The small woman in the white lab coat nods and laughs. Yes, ketchup. That's how they like their pizza in Thailand.
Thirach, a doctoral student from Chiang Mai University in Thailand, is spending the next six months doing research in the biology department at YSU.
It's her second stint here. She spent about two months at YSU last year. And she has built a rapport with colleagues, bringing new laughter into the lab.
They joke about her affinity for shopping malls. She teaches them Thai -- Na iak mak tee sud means "the most cute and handsome ever." And they teach her American slang; her favorite term so far is okey-dokey. She draws out the syllables as she says the phrase, and there's more laughter.
Serious work
But the test tubes in front of Thirach are a reminder that the work they're doing is no laughing matter.
They are studying a deadly fungus called penicillium marneffei. The species is found only in Southeast Asia, in humans and in bamboo rats, and first appeared in the 1950s, said Dr. Chester R. Cooper Jr., an assistant professor of biology at YSU. It infects nearly 30 percent of AIDS patients in Thailand and, left untreated, is 100 percent fatal. The country has seen more than 5,000 cases in the past eight to 10 years, Cooper said.
Thirach's visit is funded by the Thai government, which is seeking to find ways to manage the disease, which travels through a person's body and eats away tissue, leaving him disfigured, Cooper said. Another Chiang Mai doctoral student, Patthama Pongpom, studied at YSU for six months last summer through the same government program.
At YSU, the students learn different research techniques and have easier access to supplies, Cooper said. And YSU benefits from their techniques, their culture and their hard work.
"It's wonderful," he said. "It's a joy. ... It's absolutely the best thing that has happened in this laboratory."
Motivating presence
Tom Gifford of Champion earned a master of science degree in biology from YSU in December but has stayed to help with the project until he starts medical school. He said having Thai students in the lab has made a difference.
"I learned a lot of techniques, things we've never done here in the lab," Gifford said. "Their work ethic turned up the motive for all of us. And just having them here -- some students look at this as a job, they look at it as an opportunity."
In learning about penicillium marneffei, Cooper has visited the hospital at Chiang Mai University and seen first-hand the devastation the fungus can cause.
It has never been cultured from the environment, and scientists don't know how people become infected. It's not contagious and it's not contracted from the bamboo rats.
Cooper interjects that bamboo rats are as big as small dogs. And some Thai people eat them. He asks Thirach if she's ever tried it. She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head and there's more laughter.
The fungus can hide out for years before striking a patient whose immune system is weakened by AIDS or another condition, and until recently, medications used were ineffective. New drugs are able to treat the fungus -- if it is diagnosed.
Comparing forms
That's where the YSU team comes in. Cooper said they are comparing two forms of the fungus -- the moldlike one that is cultured at room temperature, and the yeastlike organism it changes into at body temperature.
The difference lies in various genes. Discovering which genes are turned on or off during the temperature change could lead to a test that medical personnel would use to diagnose the disease and treat it before it begins to destroy a patient.
Besides helping the medical world, Cooper said, research projects such as this one can attract more students to YSU and create a more skilled work force that will attract businesses to the Youngstown area.
"This is a tremendous asset for the university," Cooper said. "Not only do we get exceptional students and get a cultural exchange, but the benefits to the larger area are just unassessable."