His Excellency General Surayud Chulanont presided over the 16th Presentation Ceremony of the Thailand Toray Science Fundation’s Awards and Grants on 8th February 2010, at the Ballroom, Nai Lert Park Bangkok. Dr. Warayuth Sajomsang, a NANOTEC Researcher at NanoDelivery Lab received the “2010 Science and Technology Research Grants” from the Thailand Toray Science Foundation (TTSF) for his research work on “Efficacy enhancement of curcumin for cancer therapy by nanodelivery system”.
“Cancer treatment represents an enormous biomedical challenge for researchers working on drug delivery system especially when working with curcumin drug” said Dr. Warayuth. “Curcumin has demonstrated to be a safe and efficacy drug. However, it has restrictive pharmaceutical role because of its extremely low aqueous solubility, rapid systemic elimination, inadequate tissue absorption and degradation at alkaline pH, which severely curtails its bioavailability. This is where the development of an effective multifunctional drug delivery system that can be efficiently manufactured to target subtle molecular alterations that distinguish a cancer cell from healthy cells in the body comes into play, and this is where nanotechnology can play a role”.
The Thailand Toray Science Foundation (TTSF) was established in 1993 through initial endowment by Toray Industries, Inc. The object of TTSF is to contribute to the progress of science and technology which limited to the fields of natural science including the environment, but not including clinical medicine and mathematics.
The award category included:
1. The awarding of the Science and Technology Awards, to recognize outstanding achievements. (Science and Technology Awards)
2. The awarding of the Science and Technology Grants, to provide financial assistance for basic research. (Science and Technology Research Grants)
3. The awarding of the Science Education Awards, to recognize creative and innovative contributions to effective science education in junior and senior high schools. (Science Education Awards)
