PIYAKRIT WONGBOONCHAI
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piyakrit_w at protonmail.com
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Ministry of Public Health, Thailand (2024 - Present)
Research Intern at the Department of Medical Sciences
Supervised by Dr Surakameth Mahasirimongkol.
- Contributed to Genomics Thailand (GeTH), an extensive collaborative research network to enable precision medicine.
- Worked on GeTH projects to integrate genomic medicine to clinical services by developing a digital database for diseases and characterising pharmacogenes:
- Ran genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to explore genetic variants linked with drug-induced severe cutaneous adverse reactions (SCARs) and adverse events following immunisation (AEFI).
- Performed Mycobacterium tuberculosis structural variation (SV) analysis using multiple SV callers (IMSindel, Manta) and GATK 4 for single nucleotide variation (SNV) calling.
- Collaborated with medical scientists and curated BRCA1/2 variants based on guidelines provided by the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG, 2018) to construct a database for Thai breast cancer variants.
- Developed and deployed pipelines to Amazon Web Services (AWS) for scaling up demanding computational tasks, such as large GWAS analyses (>1,000 samples and >900,000 SNPs).
University of York, UK (2023)
Research project supervised by Prof Jeremy Mottram & Dr Joana Faria.
- Utilised precision gene editing to characterise a putative RNA:DNA helicase in Leishmania mexicana.
- Employed bioinformatic tools (HMMER and AlphaFold2) to infer protein structural properties.
University of Bristol, UK (2022)
Dissertation supervised by Prof Rafael Carazo-Salas.
- Applied image segmentation and classification methods for tracking individual human pluripotent stem cells to map differentiation pathways.
- Extracted biological features to predict differentiation characteristics, such as differentiation marker expression, cell cycle length, cell migration distance and cell velocity.
Ministry of Public Health, Thailand (2021)
Summer internship supervised by Dr Surakameth Mahasirimongkol.
- Conducted genomic analysis of SARS-CoV-2, focusing on the Spike and Nucleocapsid proteins, to monitor viral evolution in Thailand.
TECHNICAL SKILLS
Bioinformatics:
- Programming languages - Python, R, Unix
- Cloud & Virtual Machine (VM) computing
- GWAS, Variant interpretation, Phylogenetic inference
Experimental techniques:
- PCR, CRISPR/Cas-9, DNA extraction
- Western blot, Co-immunoprecipitation
- Cell imaging (Widefield & Confocal)
EDUCATION
University of York, UK (2022 - 2023)
Master of Science (MSc) in Biomedical Sciences
- Activities: Biodiversity Community Project
University of Bristol, UK (2019 - 2022)
Bachelor of Science (BSc Hons) in Biomedical Sciences
Gjøvik High School, Norway (2017 - 2019)
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP)
- Main subjects: Biology, Chemistry, English Language & Literature
- Extended Essay: Investigating Seasonal Effects on Cyanobacterial Growth in Norwegian Lakes
CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPS
Infectious Diseases Omics - 17 - 20 March 2025, hands-on multi-omics course hosted by the London School Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
- Techniques range from: phylogenetics and molecular clocking, transcriptomics, machine learning.
AWS Genomics Community Day - 3 – 4 March 2025, workshop hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Explored cloud-based genomics workflows with AWS HealthOmics.
MedHackathon Asia 2025 - Workshop hosted by MedHackathon Asia, 2025
- Participated in the planning of a standardised Pan-Asian imputation pipeline to improve precision medicine across Asia.
- Collaborated with data scientists to solve a hackathon problem.
- Developed an awareness for common issues among Asian countries regarding sharing genomic data.
AI in Genomics Medicine - Seminar hosted by British Embassy Bangkok with guest speakers from Genomics England and Incubator for AI (ai.gov.uk), 2025
- Explored the successes and challenges, both technical and policy-based, for AI applications in British healthcare and research.
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
Thai Society of Human Genetics, 2024 - present
AWARDS
Thai Society of Human Genetics travel grant for MedHackathon Asia, 2025
CERTIFICATES
Infectious Diseases Omics - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Intermediate Machine Learning - Kaggle
Data Science for Everyone - FutureSkill
HOBBIES & INTERESTS
- Gardening & DIY
- Rifle shooting - previously part of a local shooting team in Norway, participated in regional competitions. Learned about the importance of gun safety and control.
- Cross-country skiing