NEWS

I

n rural Thailand, an elephant sitting

in the road is not a charming sight.

The massive beasts have a penchant

for ripping off bumpers, tusking

doors, and sitting on hoods. So in

January, when an elephant loomed on

the pavement ahead, a van carrying

a team of bat researchers on a road

200 kilometers southeast of Bang-

kok stopped abruptly. As the animal loped

toward the van, ears flapping and trunk

swinging, the driver slowly backed up. At

last, the elephant lumbered back into the

other lane and the driver crept past. “That

was wild!” a member of the team said.

Its leader, Supaporn Wacharapluesadee,

who stands out as mild mannered in a

famously mild-mannered culture, fell off

her seat laughing with relief. She is used

to much smaller, but more consequential,

menaces. Within hours, she and her team

planned to be in Thailand’s Khao Ang Rue

Nai Wildlife Sanctuary examining animals

for dangerous viruses that might spill over

into humans—or already have.

Supaporn is one of the world’s most ac-

complished virus hunters. She is known

for her work tracking Nipah virus, a bat-

borne pathogen that is less contagious

than SARS-CoV-2 but more deadly to hu-

mans. She has found bat coronaviruses

related to both SARS-CoV, which triggered

the epidemic of sudden acute respiratory

syndrome (SARS) nearly 2 decades ago,

and the virus behind Middle East respira-

tory syndrome (MERS). And her quest has

gained new importance during the CO-

VID-19 pandemic, which likely originated

when a bat coronavirus evolved into SARS-

CoV-2 and crossed over into humans, per-

haps through an intermediate host animal.

She was the first researcher to sequence

SARS-CoV-2 outside China—not in an ani-

mal, but in an airline passenger—and she

is on the trail of its wild relatives. From

her base at Chulalongkorn University in

Bangkok, Supaporn has made many forays

like the one delayed by the elephant. Those

outings added precious data points in the

hunt for SARS-CoV-2’s origin as she iden-

tified bat coronaviruses on the virus’ fam-

ily tree—some of which may be its closest

relatives yet found.

The 52-year-old scientist’s career blos-

somed over the past decade after she joined

PREDICT, a multicountry, well-funded

epidemiological program sponsored by the

U.S. Agency for International Development

(USAID). Until it ended in 2019, the program

looked for pathogens in animals and humans

to spot new pandemic threats. The World

Health Organization in fall 2021 named her a

member of its new Scientific Advisory Group

for the Origins of Novel Pathogens.

“She’s fabulous,” says Dennis Carroll, a

tropical disease specialist who started PRE-

DICT. “She’s demonstrated over the years a

really innovative mind in terms of the field-

work she does, and she’s extremely practi-

cal, doing really high-quality lab work.”

PREDICT’s principal investigator,

epidemiologist Jonna Mazet of the Univer-

sity of California, Davis, also admires how

Supaporn has made her way in a male-

dominated field. “She’s had to fight for what

she got, which is especially impressive in a

country like Thailand, where the women are

not as supported as they are here in the U.S.”

Yet some scientists—including Supaporn’s

former boss, Thiravat Hemachudha—

question whether the type of arduous wild

animal surveillance she did on that elephant-

interrupted January trip truly makes humans

safer. “I don’t think it’s that valuable, and it

may be dangerous,” says Thiravat, a neuro-

logist who last year had a complicated falling

out with Supaporn that has left her without

lab equipment and staff.

Thiravat and other scientists contend

that the most efficient way to head off new

pandemics is to more aggressively test sick

livestock and other animals in contact with

people, as well as people with unexplained

illnesses, and intensify surveillance of peo-

ple who often interact with animals har-

boring dangerous pathogens. “Our motto

is: Minimize budget and maximize ben-

efit,” Thiravat says.

Supaporn, who hopes to take part in two

new viral sleuthing efforts designed to derail

spillovers, including a proposed multibillion-

dollar Global Virome Project (GVP), says

critics are presenting a false choice. To

understand viral threats, she says, wildlife

surveillance is as important as testing peo-

ple and livestock. “If we don’t do anything,

we will not know anything,” she says. She

and other pathogen hunters say if earlier

findings from wild animals had been taken

more seriously, “coronavirus” would not

have become a common word in every spo-

ken language.

SUPAPORN’S PARENTS MADE fittings for jew-

elry, and as a child she thought she would

become an artist like her brother. But as a

teen she realized her talent lay in science.

She earned an undergraduate degree in

medical technology and spent 10 years work-

ing in several diagnostic labs. “When I was

young, I was not a communicative person, so

working in the lab, there was no need to talk

to anyone,” Supaporn says. “I thought being

a technician was the best job for me.”

Supaporn Wacharapluesadee led a team
that in January captured Rhinolophus
bats (in cloth bags) at Thailand’s Khao
Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Sanctuary.

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