Every year, The National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) announces recipients of NRCT Awards, consisting of the Outstanding Researcher Awards, the Research Awards, the Thesis Awards and the Invention Awards. This year, one researcher and one invention were selected for 2016 NRCT Awards.
Dr. Wirulda Pootakham, BIOTEC researcher in Genome Research Laboratory was presented with the Thesis Awards for her PhD work in elucidating the function and regulation of sulfate transport in Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii, unicellular green alga. Insights gained from this study could be applied to genetically engineer crop species, allowing them to acclimate to sulfur-limited environment. Wirulda did her PhD study at Stanford University, USA, under supervision of Prof. Dr. Arthur Grossman.
The Invention Awards went to “ENZease: ‘two-in-one’ enzyme for one-step desizing and scouring process of cotton fabric in textile industry”. ENZease is a duo-activity enzyme for one-step biodesizing and bioscouring process of cotton fabrics. It is contained of amylase and pectinase activities which are capable of working at the same pH and temperature range. ENZease was created to replace the conventional chemical process and combine the desizing and scouring steps of cotton fabrics. Using this duo-activity enzyme is able to lower chemical consumption, minimize step in the process, shorten treatment time, and also reduce operational cost and space. The invention was developed by Enzyme Technology Laboratory, led by Dr. Thidarat Nimchua in collaboration with MTEC and Thanapaisal R.O.P.