Health Diplomats Stories
Profiles in Health Diplomacy
Dr. Montip Gettayacamin, Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences (AFRIMS)
She doesn’t look like a warrior, but Dr. Montip Gettayacamin stands on the battle lines of a war that incurs millions of casualties every year. And she doesn’t fit the typical image of a soldier, even though she works for the U.S. Army. Dr. Montip prefers a blue lab coat to olive green, her weapon of choice is a needle and syringe and her battleground is a laboratory where she fights malaria and other infectious diseases.
As a Senior Research Scientist at the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences (AFRIMS), Dr. Montip works on animal models of human diseases for testing and developing new drugs to fight malaria. Nearly one billion people live in malaria endemic areas and every year about 350 – 500 million cases of malaria occur around the world. Annually, about one million people die from this mosquito borne parasite. Although great strides have been made in combating the spread of malaria over the last few decades a disturbing trend has been the onset of drug resistant malaria strains. This keeps Dr. Montip and her colleagues at AFRIMS busy.
“Developing drugs and vaccines against diseases takes a lot of time, effort and resources,” says Dr. Montip. “As long as these diseases exist, people will get sick and drugs and vaccines are only partially effective, these processes are endless. New strains of the same disease can re-emerge or new diseases emerge too.”
Dr. Montip has been working for AFRIMS for twenty-four years. The chief of the Department of Veterinary Medicine, LTC Yvonne A. VanGessel, says, “Dr. Montip is the Department of Veterinary Medicine’s greatest asset. We are extremely proud of her and lucky to have her as a member of our team! AFRIMS’ animal care and use program and research utilizing animal models of human disease are recognized world-wide as exceptional, as is Dr. Montip.”
The list of bacteria and viruses that Dr. Montip has worked on reads like a Rogues Gallery of deadly diseases. “In the past I have had experience with other animal models of infectious disease including Dengue viral infection, Shigella and Campylobacter diarrhea, Japanese Encephalitis virus (JEV) and Rabies,” Dr. Montip says of her work in the Department of Veterinary Medicine. “I have also conducted surveillance in animals for zoonotic diseases, which are diseases that can affect both humans and animals, like leptospirosis and brucellosis.”
The AFRIMS animal facility where she works provides scientists with a world-class research animal support program. They maintain an assurance with the U.S. National Institutes of Health. They are the only animal research facility in Thailand fully accredited by the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC). AAALAC International is a private, nonprofit organization that promotes the humane treatment of animals in science through voluntary accreditation and assessment programs. AFRIMS’ animal research program accreditation demonstrates that they meet the minimum standards required by law, and are also going the extra step to achieve excellence in animal care and use. This means scientific discoveries from Dr. Montip’s work are based on consistent, reliable, and clean resources. AFRIMS’s accreditation is reviewed by AAALAC triennially and the most recent on-site evaluation gave them top marks, saying they were “an exemplary program of animal care and use.”
It might seem unusual for a Thai scientist to be working for the U.S. Army. But Dr. Montip says her family is supportive. “They are very proud of me for having a great job working with the U.S. medical research institution to fight tropical diseases, and improving the quality of human of lives.”
A native of Thonburi, Dr. Montip recalls her first visit to AFRIMS when she was a student of Veterinary Medicine at Chulalongkorn University: “I visited AFRIMS when I was a veterinary student as part of a laboratory animal science course. At that time,” she says, “I was very impressed with the laboratory animal medicine and veterinary operation and I remember thinking that it would be a dream job if I could work at AFRIMS. That dream has come true.”
AFRIMS traces its roots back to 1958 when a group of U.S. and Thai scientists banded together to investigate a cholera outbreak. Today AFRIMS operates as a joint U.S. – Thai military medical operation, and the overall command rests with a Royal Thai Army flag officer. “The organization possesses a number of unique attributes supporting its continued success,” says the commanding U.S. officer, Colonel James Boles. “The dual U.S. Army – Royal Thai Army joint command structure …brings together the strengths of both organizations.” Working within the American component of AFRIMS are as many as 400 U.S. and Thai personnel.
“The collaboration with the Royal Thai Army and Thai Government Institutions is well-established and has been sustained for almost 50 years,” Dr. Montip says about the mutual cooperation between the United States and Thailand in the area of medical research. “AFRIMS has accomplished or participated in development of several vaccines and medical therapies that are in use today and puts a major emphasis on high quality work.”
But despite those accomplishments, the fight against infectious diseases continues, as does Dr. Montip’s never-ending battle. But she remains philosophical. “There is always something new to learn when working in the medical research field,” says Dr. Montip.
For more information about AFRIMS, please visit http://www.afrims.org/.
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