Busy Mosquitoes

As we all know, it has been a wild ride in the past 6 months for everyone. First off, let's address the gigantic viral elephant in the room that is COVID-19. Everyone was hit hard when the pandemic begun. We have been fortunate enough in Thailand as the disease control strategy has been quite effective in the past few months with very minimal local transmission (1 local case in 100+ days). That being said, we are picking things up right where we left off. The lab is back and running again. We have implemented extra safety measures for our lab members. We are working out the work flow with the OB/GYN department at the Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Thailand, to ensure that our personnel have the lowest exposure risk while interacting with volunteers and patients in the future. As exciting as it is to be back in the lab, we are still keeping our guards up to protect ourselves and others in this new normal. Again, we are very excited to resume the project, ...

With more and more constraints on scientific funding worldwide, researchers are having a difficult time securing supports for their work, especially among those relative early in their career like a PhD students, postdoctoral fellows or young PIs. Funding is crucial at this stage where new investigators can establish their career path. With many startups turning to crowdfunding to help complete their projects, you are now seeing new campaigns offering all these fun gadgets and technologies almost everyday. What crowdfunding does here is to bring you, as potential customers, closer to the companies. It generates buzz for the biz, and you get a glimpse of the products you will likely purchase. Crowdfunding connects the startup owners with broader audiences who are as passionate about the projects as they are. In turn, these audiences have a chance to be a part of the projects through small donations. While money raised from crowdfunding may not entirely replace the more traditional...