Assoc. Prof. Watcharin Loilome works at Khon Kaen University in northeast Thailand where the highest incidence of cholangiocarcinoma in the world has been noticed for more than 20 years.  Her research has been focusing on the molecular mechanisms underlying the genesis of the liver fluke infection-associated cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) in order to find the improvement for prevention and treatment as well as the biomarkers for better disease diagnosis and prognosis.

Together with Late Professor Narong Khuntikeo and the team, they have developed Cholangiocarcinoma Screening and Care Program or CASCAP (https://cloud.cascap.in.th/, Isan Cohort) and established the Cholangiocarcinoma Research Institute (CARI), Center of Excellent for Cholangiocarcinoma, and Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation. CASCAP is the primary project that aims to systemically and cooperatively monitor, screen, diagnose and treat patients with or at risk of CCA so that patients can be provided with curative or palliative treatment for better quality of lives. Thereafter, the implementation of regional and national public health policy concerning CCA may be effectively and seriously raised.

The team has developed CASCAP tools which are the computing systems where the database of patients is stored. The database of patients records the medical information from the moment a person is registered as at-risk, through effective ultrasound/CT/MRI screening and treatments (chemotherapy or surgery), until follow-up. CASCAP tools are able to connect and transfer medical information between public health institutes, providing convenient and powerful support for treatment, patient care, research, and solutions to CCA-related problems. The CASCAP program has been adopted in Lao PDR, which faces similar challenges, and is envisioned to cover more regions of Thailand and other countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion where populations are also at risk of liver fluke infection and CCA.

Assoc. Prof. Watcharin Loilome received her PhD in Medical Biochemistry from the Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University, and conducted postdoctoral research fellowships at Johns Hopkins University, USA, and Tsukuba University, Japan. She currently serves as the director of the Cholangiocarcinoma Research Institute at Khon Kaen University and chairs the Health and Medical Science (Systems Biosciences) graduate program for the Department of Systems Biosciences and Computational Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University.