People

Pon Songkiatisak

I have joined the Xu Group in May 2011 as a Ph.D. student in Biomedical Sciences Program. I pursued my bachelor's degree in pharmaceutical sciences from Chulalongkorn University in my native Thailand with a major in Pharmaceutical Quality Control. I worked in a laboratory in a pharmaceutical factory where I learned and had expertise in pharmaceutical analysis by using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and UV-vis spectrophotometer; instrument calibration; Good Laboratory Practice (GLP). Having worked in Thailand for four years, I joined the Integrated Sciences and Technology (ISAT) program at James Madison University (JMU) in 2008. I pursued my Master's degree in December of 2009 and worked as a laboratory staff at JMU after I graduated.

The ISAT program widens my horizon how to combine different science fields into a new innovative application. Nanomedicine is an interesting area where knowledge in pharmaceutical, engineering, chemistry, and biology are integrated in order to initiate a new medical application. My interest in nanomedicine gained fresh impetus during my graduate studies at JMU. The development of nanomaterials provides promising therapeutic advantages for diagnosing and curing cancers and other life-threatening diseases. Currently, multifunctional nanoparticulate drug delivery systems that target tumor cells have been hypothesized to be an effective clinical approach for treatment of primary and metastatic cancers. My primary interest, since chemotherapeutic drugs or siRNA can be used as cancer therapies when formulated in nanocarriers. I wish to learn how to formulate and modify the surface of nanocarriers in order to improve drug efficacy and minimize adverse effects.

Scientific research has its origins in a very fundamental human quality, curiosity. It is very important, though, to ask the right questions. Although I have just joined the Xu Group, I find out that the group has indeed raised many relevant questions to my research interest. I am glad to be one of the group researchers seeking the answers.