Ranitha Vongpromek

Ranitha Vongpromek coordinates the activities of the Specimen Management Laboratory (SML) and the IDDO/ WWARN External Quality Assurance (EQA) Programme, headed by Mehul Dhorda.

The SML supports quality assurance of field laboratory activities for diverse MORU projects by developing protocols, providing training, monitoring and quality control services as well as managing specimen logistics and archiving.

The IDDO/WWARN EQA programme operates a unique ISO 17043:2010 accredited Proficiency Testing scheme for laboratories performing antimalarial drug level measurements as well as a Drug Reference Materials Programme to support assay development, validation and quality control.

After obtaining a master’s degree at Chulalongkorn University, Ranitha obtained scholarships to continue her training at Utrecht University and the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands. Her doctoral work was on identifying associations of genetic factors with cardiovascular disease and diabetes. She started work at MORU in 2014 to coordinate a field trial of a prototype artificial intelligence-based device for malaria microscopy. She continued this work with a further trial of a production prototype and is currently co-coordinating a multi-centre trial of the same device in 10 countries across the malaria-endemic world. She is also a co-investigator on multiple molecular surveillance projects to track antimalarial drug resistance.