Symposium Speakers

Gan Siew Hua obtained her undergraduate degree in pharmacy from Manchester University, England and subsequent higher qualifications (M. Pharm and PhD) from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). Upon completion of her PhD in 2003, she joined the Medical School in USM before joining Monash University Malaysia as a Professor in Pharmacy in Jan 2018 after serving in USM for 18 years.

Gan has published more than 200 WOS-indexed papers with more than 60% of papers that are internationally-collaborated. She has received various fundings from national and international agencies amounting to RM 5.8 million. To date, she has successfully supervised 15 PhD and 3 MSc students to completion. Gan serves on the editorial board of several journals such as Seminars in Cancer Biology, Frontiers in Pharmacology, Plos One, International Journal of Hypertension, Current Chemical Genomics & Translational Medicine, World Journal of Medical Genetics and Evidence-Based Complementary Alternative Medicine.

James Kah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in NUS. He received his B.Eng. with first class honours in Electrical Engineering and subsequently completed his Ph.D. in 2009, both from National University of Singapore (NUS). Prior to joining NUS in the fall of 2012, James was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is currently the Principal Investigator of the Nanomedicine & Nanorobotics Laboratory at NUS.

His current research interests focus on understanding the nano-bio interface and developing nanodevices with smart interface strategies to effectively probe and modulate biological processes for diagnostic and therapeutic applications particularly in cancer and infectious diseases.

Leong Chee Onn has conducted multi-year research focused on drug target discovery, novel molecules development through preclinical and clinical trials, and biomarkers development for diagnosis of refractory breast cancers. He has published extensively in high impact journals, including Nature Cell Biology, Cancer Cell, PNAS, Cancer Research and etc. He has received numerous international awards including the FMD Fellowship (USA), the Institute of Biomedical Science President’s Award (UK) and the Top Research Scientist Malaysia (TRSM).

Leong was a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA and is presently a Fellow at the Royal Society of Biology, UK, and the Deputy Director of Research at the International Medical University, Malaysia.

Satoshi Ogawa's academic qualifications and training are in neuroscience, bioimaging and molecular morphology. He joined Monash University in 2006 as a Lecturer and promoted to Senior Research Fellow in 2014. He received his BSc from Tokyo University of Fisheries, MSc from the University of Tokyo and PhD degree in Physiology from Nippon Medical School in 2006. He has published in internationally renowned journals such as Endocrinology, and Proceedings of National Academy of Science, USA.

As a young researcher, he has received the Jimmie Dodd Memorial Prize for Comparative Endocrinology and has won honours from Sasakawa Scientific Research and the International Brain Research Organization.

Robyn Tolhurst is the managing director of Red Fern Communication as well as a senior consultant to universities, the banking and financial services industry and government agencies in Australia. With over 25 years of experience in the field of communications, Robyn is passionate about improving communication in education, cross-cultural relations and patient-doctor interactions. She also has presented on publication for early career researchers.

In this meeting, Robyn will be focusing on how effective clinician-patient communication can lead to better outcomes for patients and develop a higher level of job satisfaction for clinicians. She will delve into approaches to identify communication barriers and tools for developing techniques to address the healthcare needs of patients in a meaningful way.

Debra S.M. Sim is currently an honorary professor at the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya. She obtained her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Liverpool, U.K., before joining the present university as a lecturer in 1984 and retired as a professor in 2018. Debra played a pivotal role in the introduction of problem-based learning (PBL) in the university’s MBBS programme in 1999/2000, and has since been actively involved in the training of students and tutors for PBL locally and abroad. She frequently speaks in regional PBL conferences and in Teaching-Learning forums.

Debra was a 2007-Fellow of the FAIMER Institute, based in Philadelphia, USA. Her FAIMER project was on the training of prescribing skills in undergraduate medical students, which later developed into a module known as PILLS that involves interprofessional learning (IPL) between medical and pharmacy students in their respective final year undergraduate programmes (since 2008). She was recently awarded with Anugerah Akademik Negara (Teaching) by the Ministry of Higher Education in 2017.

Norfilza Mohd Mokhtar underwent molecular biology training under the mentorship of Professor Stephen Charnock Jones and Professor Stephen Smith from the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. Her research was on the regulation of macrophage inflammatory protein 2 gamma by steroids in endometrium. She was elected as the Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust as well as the life member of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. Since then, Norfilza has successfully obtained multiple key national research grants as the principal investigator for the Higher Institution Centre of Excellence grant, Fundamental Research Fund, Exploratory Research Grant Scheme, National ScienceFund grant, Arus Perdana, Dana Impak Perdana grant and Malaysia Research University grant.

Her research projects focusing on genomics, epigenomics and transcriptomics aspects on multiple diseases including colorectal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and colitis associated cancer. She is currently professor of Genomic Medicine at the Department of Physiology, the President of Malaysian Society of Pharmacology & Physiology and also coordinator for the International Program for the Faculty of Medicine, UKM.

Ida Idayu Muhamad, CEng, MIChemE, C.Sci, FIFST, is the Head of Food and Biomaterial Engineering Research Group (FoBERG) of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Dr Ida served as the Chairman of the Scientific Advisors also Head of Biomaterial Cluster for the IJN-UTM Cardiovascular Engineering Centre. Prior to this position, she led the Bioprocess Engineering Department (2010-2013, then 2015-2017). She is a Chartered Engineer, Chartered Scientist and founder of the Food and Biomaterial Engineering Research Group at UTM. Dr Ida pioneered research in active-smart materials/packaging using natural bioactive and biopolymers in Malaysia, then advancing their practicalities in bioactive, nutraceuticals and drug delivery systems.

Her research activities resulted in more than 20 intellectual properties, numerous prestigious awards, over 100 peer-reviewed publications in national and international journals, supervision of more than 40 post-graduates, and post-doctorates. She has been extensively involved in 50 research projects (worth RM7.61Million), 15 industrial based projects for various companies and government agencies and has trained employees from more than 30 companies in the field of sustainable hygienic design and best practices for quality management (GMP, cGMP). Dr Ida specializes in biomaterial process engineering with emphasis on process innovation. She has synergized many novel compounds with new properties including microbial sources which have applications in the food and feed, cosmetics, drugs and pharmaceutical industries. Her work focuses in the development of nano-delivery systems and formulation of bioactive compounds for achieving the best efficiency, bioavailability and safety towards the wellbeing of mankind, for a sustainable future.

Balraj Sethi MD, is a Medical Affairs Manager overlooks Breast Cancer and Kidney Cancer portfolio at Novartis. He is also in charge of Novartis pipeline molecules for Hematology and Oncology. He is an Australian Medical Council certified medical degree holder and current candidate of Masters in Public Health at University Malaya.

Zalina Ismail has MBBCh (Cairo University ) LLB, Hons ( London University ), Post Grad Dip Intellectual Property/ Medical Law (London University), LLM (Masters in Intellectual Property law: London University) PhD (Flinders University, Australia). She is currently with BRAINetwork Centre for Neurocognitive Sciences, School of Health Sciences, University Sains Malaysia, Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, Malaysia.

Her research interest includes Neurocognitive Science, Medical Law, Intellectual Property Law, Medical Education mainly in relation to vulnerable and indigenous communities. She has been involved in formulating MOA between BRAINetwork, PPSK and Lincoln University College and Homalee Training Services in 2016. She is a HRDF-certified trainer in neurocognitive wellness and has been serving as a Consultant for Neurocognitive Wellness, KBMC since 2016. She has been featured as one of 50 top investigators who were alumni of Flinders University in honor of the 50th Anniversary of Flinders University, The First Mile Project was featured in a book entitled ”The Investigator Transformed” (2016) and in 2017 has co-researched International Programme on Neurocognitive Wellness with Bath University UK and Toyohashi University Japan.

Zuratul Ain Abdul Hamid obtained her B.Eng. and M.Sc. degrees in Materials Engineering from the Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, in 2001 and 2002 respectively and the PhD degree in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from The University of Melbourne, Parkville Melbourne Australia, in 2010. She is a biomaterials scientist at the School of Materials & Mineral Resources Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Her research interests include fabrication of polymeric biomaterials, injectable hydrogel scaffolds, developing drug delivery vehicles (i.e., PLA microspheres), aloe vera based biopolymer, surface modification of biomaterials and exploring TRIZ for inventive problem's solving. Zuratul Ain Abdul Hamid was a recipient of Air Asia Fellowship awarded by Air Asia Airline and The Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning in 2017.