Issara Kaweewan
issara.kaweewan@cmu.ac.th
Office
50th Anniversary building, Room 716, Faculty of Medicine
Research interest
Dr. Issara is interested in isolating novel bacterial species, especially actinobacteria from nature, to be used as bioresources for producing bioactive compounds such as antibacterial, anti-biofilm, anticancer, and antiviral agents. Her research includes extraction, isolation, and characterization of bioactive compounds derived from bacteria, as well as structure elucidation using mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy. Dr. Issara also performs heterologous production of bioactive compounds in a heterologous host, Escherichia coli, using genetic engineering and molecular cloning approaches. She aims to discover new bioactive compounds that are efficient for developing new drugs to treat infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria, which is currently a significant issue.
Short biography
Dr. Issara graduated a B.Sc. degree in Microbiology (First-class honors) from the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chiang Mai University in 2014. She got Asia Bridge Program (ABP) Scholarship and Environmental Leaders Program-Shizuoka University (ELSU) Scholarship for her master’s and doctoral courses in Japan. After received her Ph.D. (Bioscience) from Shizuoka University in 2020, Dr. Issara continued her research in Japan as postdoctoral fellow (JSPS) with Professor Shinya Kodani for 2 years. Her research focused on discovery of new bioactive compounds from bacteria especially actinomycetes. Dr. Issara returned to Thailand and joined the Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University as an instructor in 2023.
Field of research
Bacteriology, Molecular biology, Bioactive compounds, Heterologous production
Current projects
1) Discovery of bioactive compounds to combat multidrug-resistant bacterial infection
2) Heterologous production of new bioactive compounds
3) Anti-biofilm activity of Actinomyces metabolites on the catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI)