My name is Chukiat Tantiwong, I am from Bangkok, Thailand. I first studied my Bachelor in Physics, with a short term project on Magnetic Drug Targeting, and a major project on Enzyme-Substrate Recognition at Centrum für Chemie und Biomedizin, Innsbruck, Austria. After I graduated, I got an Erasmus Mundus scholarship on the AtoSiM program (Atomic Scale Modelling of Physical, Chemical, and Bio-molecular Systems).
The scholarship allowed me to move to 3 universities in 3 different countries across Europe, namely Netherlands (Amsterdam), Italy (Rome), and France (Lyon), and receive 3 master degrees. I have done my masters project on Lipid Droplet Budding at Institut de Biologie et Chimie des Protéines, Lyon, France. I applied for many PhD positions in Europe, but this one in TAPAS attracted me the most. Lucky!
Since the beginning, I have trained on computational skills and biophysics. This project in TAPAS allowed me to combine my knowledge of biology, mathematics, physics, and programming together. The research is also in frontier science, and can really have a practical application. This work allows me to travel cross Europe again. Starting with 1 year at University of Reading, UK, followed by another year at Alacris Theranostics GmbH, Berlin, Germany, the last year will be at Maastricht University, Netherlands.
The main purpose of my project is to create a model that can explain the mechanism of clustering and signalling of collagen receptor in platelets. With this model, one can design a drug which could be used for preventing thrombosis. The approach is based on mathematical and computational modelling, such as systems of differential equations.