The better news as far as Thailand is concerned is that the creator of this treatment could be 22-year-old Bangkokian Thanissara Chansakul, a pre-medical junior student at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.

"Noon", as she is known on campus, is conducting significant stem-cell research as part of her undergraduate project.

The research includes experiments in growing new cartilage to replace worn or damaged cartilage in human joints such as the knee.

Preliminary results in the project, which Noon has been working on with a doctoral student for over two years, look very promising.

The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Biomedical Engineering Society last autumn.

"This is a key step that moves our lab a little closer to its goal of growing new cartilage through tissue engineering," Thanissara was quoted as saying in the March volume of the JHU Gazette, which is published by Johns Hopkins University.

Thanissara is seeking to replicate the results for a paper that she and her research fellow will submit to a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Her ongoing experiments involve testing a mix of adult and embryonic stem cells in an effort to generate new cartilage.

"We're trying to find the best biological conditions to increase the survival rate of these cells and to get them to turn into the cells that make up cartilage," she says.

Thanissara is currently on a summer break with her family in Bangkok before she returns to complete the last year of her undergraduate study at the university's Whiting School of Engineering.

She is majoring in chemical and biomolecular engineering and plans to move on to a medical school to study towards an MD and PhD in medicine while continuing her research project.

Studying chemical and biomolecular engineering is the foundation for her plans to continue in the field of tissue engineering says Thanissara, who received the American Institute of Chemical Engineers' Award for Scholastic Achievement 2006.

The award is presented annually to the junior student with the top performance in the field.

Thanissara is studying in the US on a full scholarship provided by the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology.

"Very glad, proud and very surprised," she said as she recalled the feeling when receiving the award on May 8.

Although she has always tried her best in her studies, she said she did not expect to become the best of the batch.

And this is not her first time in the spotlight. As a high-school student in 2001, Thanissara received a gold medal with the highest score in the International Biology Olympiad held in Brussels, Belgium, where she competed against 150 students from 38 countries.

She said she expects to return to her hometown as a research doctor in about seven to ten years, determined to improve her medical knowledge through research such as the project she is working on.

"To become a medical doctor, I might be able to help thousands of people in a lifetime, yet as a research doctor I could help save millions of lives at once with good research," says Thanissara, whose parents and elder brother are all medical doctors. Her younger sister is a medical student.

Arthit Khwankhom

The Nation