Montarop Yamabhai
Montarop Yamabhai is a Professor of Molecular Biotechnology at School of Biotechnology, Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. Prof. Yamabhai received her B.Sc. in Pharmacy with honors from Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand in 1989. In 1992, she received a Fulbright pre-doctoral fellowship to conduct a short-term research at University of Minnesota, twin cities, USA, before receiving the Royal Thai Government Scholarship for a faculty position at SUT to complete her Ph.D. study in Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA in 1998. In 1999, she received the NIH funding for a post-doctoral training at UTSW-Med Ctr, USA for 2 years. In 2003, she received the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship to conduct a research at Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany for 8 months. After that, she resumed her work at SUT. She was appointed as Assistant Professor in March, 2005, Associate professor in 2008. Then, on 13 October, 2016, she was appointed to be the Professor in Molecular Biotechnology under the signature of His Majesty the King Rama 9th. Prof. Yamabhai is the head of the “Molecular Biotechnology Laboratory” (MY Lab) at Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand. This laboratory is divided into two research units, i.e. “Phage Display Biotechnology Research Unit” and “Enzyme Biotechnology Research Unit”. Current research projects involve expressions and improvement of various enzymes for biotechnological applications and engineering of antibodies for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. Since 2010, she was appointed to be the chair of school of Biotechnology, SUT. The school was ranked as “very good” and moved up to be # 2 in the country by Thailand Research Fund (TRF) for Research competency in the year 2016. She has supervised more than 20 Master and Ph.D. students, published more than 50 articles in international peer-review journals, several book chapters and reviews, filed approx. 10 patents, and received a total of approx. 3 million USD of research funding.