Dr. Saengchan Senapin, BIOTEC Researcher in Shrimp Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Laboratory (Centex Shrimp), was awarded Taguchi Prize for Outstanding Researcher 2016 at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Thai Society for Biotechnology and International Conference 2016.
Dr. Saengchan was recognized for her research work entitled “Current and emerging infectious diseases in fish and shrimp: Emphasis on molecular characterization, pathogenesis, and detection”. She studied the emerging disease outbreaks in the whiteleg shrimp (Penaeus vannamei) which were characterized by gross signs of whitened abdominal muscles and cumulative mortality, and caused by the infection of Infectious myonecrosis virus (IMNV), Penaeus vannamei nodavirus (PvNV) and Macrobrachium rosenbergii nodavirus (MrNV). She also worked on yellow head virus (YHV), the major pathogen in the black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) which can also cause serious mortality in whiteleg shrimp P. Vannamei farm. Moreover, Dr. Saengchan found newly emerging disease that is also known as early mortality syndrome/Acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (EMS/AHPND) caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus. In her another study, it firstly reported a novel disease in tilapia (Oreochromis spp.), called Hahellosis or “red egg disease”, caused by a marine bacterium Hahella chejuensis. Apart from those four studies, Dr. Saengchan in collaboration with researchers from Chulalongkorn University performed coinfections of Flavobacterium columnare and Edwardsiella ictaluri found in naturally diseased Thai striped catfish exhibiting columnaris and edwardsiellosis diseases. Coinfection tests caused significantly high cumulative mortality compared to single infections. Additionally, it was discovered that Francisella noatunensis subsp. orientalis (Fno) and Aeromonas veronii are emerging bacteria in farmed tilapia in Thailand. This leads to further develop the Fno detection, using DNA-based detection, and vaccine for Aeromonas species respectively.
Taguchi Prize for Outstanding Researcher is established with the aim to reward scientists with outstanding research results, graduate students with the distinguished thesis and the private sector with an important role in the support and development of technology in education, research and application of science in the field of biotechnology.