Yong Poovorawan (; born 5 November 1950) is a professor of

pediatrics Pediatrics (American English) also spelled paediatrics (British English), is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, Adolescence, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, pediatrics covers many o ...

at the

Faculty of Medicine A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, professional school, or forms a part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, ...

Chulalongkorn University Chulalongkorn University (CU; ; , ) is a public university, public Autonomous university, autonomous research university in Bangkok, Thailand. The university was originally founded during King Chulalongkorn's reign as a school for training ro ...

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

. He is known for research in the fields of pediatric hepatology, viral hepatitis and

virology Virology is the Scientific method, scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host (biology), ...

, and

avian influenza Avian influenza, also known as avian flu or bird flu, is a disease caused by the influenza A virus, which primarily affects birds but can sometimes affect mammals including humans. Wild aquatic birds are the primary host of the influenza A viru ...

Early life and education

Yong Poovarawan was born on 5 November 1950 in

. The fourth of six children, he is the younger twin brother of

Yuen Poovarawan Yuen Poovarawan (, born 5 November 1950) is a Thai computer scientist. He worked at Kasetsart University in Bangkok, Thailand until his retirement, where his last positions were associate professor in the Department of Computer Engineering and Vi ...

, computer scientist and Vice President of

Kasetsart University Kasetsart University (; ; commonly Kaset or KU) is a public university, public research university in Bangkok, Thailand. It is the largest university in Thailand. It was Thailand's first agriculture, agricultural university and Thailand's third ...

. As a child, his family moved to

Nakhon Pathom Nakhon Pathom (, ) is a city (''thesaban nakhon'') in central Thailand, the former capital of Nakhon Pathom province. One of the most important landmarks is the giant Phra Pathommachedi. The city is also home to Thailand's only Bhikkhuni temple W ...

, where he attended Phrapathom Witthayalai School. He attended upper-secondary school at Triam Udom Suksa School, and graduated

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

in 1972 and

Doctor of Medicine A Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated MD, from the Latin language, Latin ) is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the ''MD'' denotes a professional degree of ph ...

in 1974 from

Work

Yong trained in

at the Chulalongkorn University

and completed board certification by the Medical Council of Thailand in 1978. He was subsequently accepted as a faculty member, and received a research

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

ship grant at the hepatology department at King's College Hospital Medical School during 1983–84.. He has since worked continuously at Chulalongkorn, mostly focusing on teaching and research, and obtained professorship in 1990. He has served as the head of the faculty's Viral Hepatitis Research Unit and Molecular Biology Research Unit since 1992 and 1996, respectively.

Research

Yong has held a deep interest in research since medical school. He first published in national journals during his first year of residency, and began publishing internationally in 1989, with his work on hepatitis B vaccination. He is the author or co-author of over 400 publications in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, and virology indexed by the PubMed database, with about 20,000 citations and an ''h''-index of 65 as calculated by Google Scholar. His works originally focused on the fields of pediatric

hepatology Hepatology is the branch of medicine that incorporates the study of liver, gallbladder, biliary tree, and pancreas as well as management of their disorders. Although traditionally considered a sub-specialty of gastroenterology, rapid expansion ...

and viral hepatitis, especially in applications to the Thai healthcare system, on which such works have had significant impact. Later on they expanded to include

studies in general. Yong is widely recognized for his work on genetic sequencing and detection of the

H5N1 Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 (A/H5N1) is a subtype of the influenza A virus, which causes the disease avian influenza (often referred to as "bird flu"). It is enzootic (maintained in the population) in many bird populations, and also panzoo ...

virus in Thailand, which saw outbreaks beginning in 2004, and is regarded as the national expert on the subject.

COVID-19

During the

COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand The COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand is a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). Thailand was the first country to report a case outside C ...

, Poovorawan served as an advisor to

Prayut Chan-o-cha Prayut Chan-o-cha (sometimes spelled Prayuth Chan-ocha; , ; born 21 March 1954) is a former Thai politician, army officer and dictator who became the 29th prime minister of Thailand after seizing power in the 2014 Thai coup d'état, 2014 coup ...

's government. He often exaggerated the efficacy of the disputed

CoronaVac CoronaVac, also known as the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, was a whole inactivated virus COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech. It was phase III clinically trialled in Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, the Philippines, and ...

, which the country heavily relied on for immunization, including suggestion that a third dose of CoronaVac may result in an immunity more or less comparable to that of Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine, or arguing for the mixing Sinovac's and AstraZeneca's vaccines based on a very small human trial. In July 2021, his article in Thai Wikipedia was vandalized, which includes text accusing him of being "Sinovac's salesman". A complaint was filed by Poovorawan's attorney, which led to an arrest of the wrongdoer within 3 days.

Awards and recognition

Yong has received numerous awards for his contributions to his fields of research, including the following: * Outstanding Scientist Award (1997), Foundation for the Promotion of Science and Technology * Outstanding Researcher Award (1997), National Research Council * Senior Research Scholar (1997–present), Thailand Research Fund * Mahidol University–B.Braun Prize for Medicine and Public Health (2003) * Research Citation Award (2003), Thailand Research Fund * Outstanding Lecturer Award in Health Sciences (2004), Council of the University Faculty Senates of Thailand * Dushdi Mala Medal for medicine (2007). * Outstanding Prof. Thailand Research Fund (2012-2014) * Research Chair Grant, NSTDA (2014) * Outstanding Achievement Doctor from the

Medical Council of Thailand The Medical Council of Thailand () is the country's professional regulatory body for the medical profession. It operates under the provisions of the Medical Profession Act, B.E. 2525 (1982 CE), which replaced a series of earlier legislation dating ...

(2018) * Achievement award in Virology, Genetics Society of Thailand] (2018) * Achievement award from the National Vaccine Institute of Thailand (2019) His work on avian influenza in Thailand also received outstanding research awards from the Thailand Research Fund in 2004 and the National Research Council in 2006. Yong serves on the

editorial board The editorial board is a group of editors, writers, and other people who are charged with implementing a publication's approach to editorials and other opinion pieces. The editorials published normally represent the views or goals of the publicat ...

of Pathogens and Global Health, and once served on the board of the Journal of Pediatrics, in addition to other national publications.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poovorawan, Yong Yong Poovorawan Yong Poovorawan Yong Poovorawan Yong Poovorawan Yong Poovorawan Yong Poovorawan Yong Poovorawan 1950 births Living people