About Us

LIM Chwee Teck

Director of iHealthtech
NUS Society (NUSS) Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering,
College of Design and Engineering (CDE), NUS
ctlim@nus.edu.sg
ctlimlab.org

The MechanoBioEngineering Laboratory aims to address important scientific and biomedical problems using interdisciplinary approaches, develop innovative solutions and translate them for biological and healthcare applications. Our research focuses on:

1) Human disease biomechanics & mechanobiology.
2) Microfluidic technologies for disease detection, diagnosis and therapy.
3) 2D materials for biomedical applications.

LEE Chuen Neng

Clinical Director
MBBS, MMed, FRCS (Glas), FRCS (Edin), FRACS, FAMS (Cardiothoracic Surgery)
The Abu Rauff Professor in Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Courtesy Professor in Engineering, College of Design & Engineering, NUS
Emeritus Consultant Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery
Professor, Department of Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
surlcn@nus.edu.sg

Professor LEE Chuen Neng is the founder of the Department of Cardiac, Thoracic & Vascular Surgery NUH, a Professor in Surgery and in Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He had held various appointments including President of the Cardiac Society on three occasions, President of the International Chinese Heart Health Network, Council member of the Asian Federation of Cardiology, Vice Chairman of the Singapore Heart Association. He was appointed as Head of Department of Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS on 1 October 2005, and Chair of Surgery NUHS Surgical Cluster. Prof Lee was the Chairman of the Specialist Training Committee for Cardiothoracic Surgery, Ministry of Health and a Founding Executive Council Member of the Asian Society for Cardiovascular Surgery (ASCVTS) since 1993, becoming President of the ASCVTS 2009-2016. His special interest are coronary artery, exosomes, microbiome and promotion of multi-disciplinary collaboration in areas of Medical Technology. He chairs several start ups in Biotechnology and is on boards of an NGO for children with autism and a charity to encourage volunteerism for vulnerable communities in Singapore.

Subbu Venkatraman

Adjunct Professor, Director, ILO NUS, Department of Materials Science & Engineering,
College of Design and Engineering (CDE), NUS
subbu@nus.edu.sg

Roger HO

Professor & Consultant,
Department of Psychological Medicine, NUH
pcmrhcm@nus.edu.sg

Dr Roger Ho is an academic psychiatrist. His research focuses on the functional assessment of brains in healthy individuals and patients with various types of psychiatric conditions.

The key areas of his research include the exploration of novel, portable and cost-effective functional imaging modalities for human brains. The current technology is functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). This new imaging modality will offer adjunct diagnostic tools in addition to face-to-face clinical interviews.

His research team hopes to make significant breakthroughs to offer functional brain imaging in any clinical setting and provides longitudinal data to monitor the clinical course of psychiatric illnesses.

Other fNIRS Group Members:

Cyrus HO Su Hui
Associate Consultant Psychiatrist
su_hui_ho@nuhs.edu.sg
Dr Cyrus HO is an academic psychiatrist who clinically manages and conducts research on psychiatric conditions across the age continuum from adolescence to old age, with a particular interest in neuropsychiatry, neuro-rehabilitation and mood disorders. He has a keen interest in functional neuroimaging, which he believes opens the window into the mind-brain interface. He has experience in the use of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and also looks forward to integrating various investigative modalities including biosensors and electroencephalogram (EEG) for translational research. He is keen to seek research collaboration locally and internationally.

DING Xiao Pan
Assistant Professor,  Department of Psychology
psydx@nus.edu.sg
Dr DING Xiao Pan is a developmental psychologist. She focuses on the development of moral behaviour and how to facilitate its development. As a starting point in addressing this complex issue, she has focused on the topic of lying both because of its theoretical implications for understanding children’s moral development, and because of its practical importance for legal, clinical, and educational settings. She employs both behavioural and cognitive neuroscience methods in her research. For neuroimaging work, she is currently using an emerging technique called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which uses near-infrared light to record the neural activity of children’s brain.

CHEN Nanguang
Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
biecng@nus.edu.sg

Dr CHEN Nanguang’s research areas include biomedical optics and bioelectronics. He has been working on diffuse optical imaging/spectroscopy since 1997. His major contributions to this field include novel time-resolved optical measurement methods, optimal optode configurations, and theoretical models for solving forward and inverse problems. Currently, he is interested in developing advanced optical imaging/spectroscopy instruments to address a variety of neuroscience/neuroengineering problems.

YU Rongjun
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
psyyr@nus.edu.sg
www.rongjunyu.org
Dr Rongjun YU is a social neuroscientist focusing on studying the neural basis of cooperation and social cognition. He uses hyperscanning event-related optical signal (EROS) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to elucidate brain-to-brain interactions when people interact with each other in social games and to understand the neural basis of social decision making deficits commonly seen in various psychiatric disorders.

Liu Xiaogang

Professor, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science

chmlx@nus.edu.sg
https://liuxg.science.nus.edu.sg/

Dr Xiaogang Liu received his BEng from Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, China (1992-1996), his MSc in Chemistry from East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA (1999), and his PhD from Northwestern University, Evanston, USA (2004). After spending two years as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, he joined NUS in 2006 and was promoted to Full Professor in 2017. Since 2018, Dr Liu is a distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry at NUS. Among his research interests are the study of energy transfer in lanthanide-doped nanomaterials, the application of optical nanomaterials for neuromodulation, the development of advanced X-ray imaging scintillators, and the prototyping of electronic tools for assistive technologies. Dr Liu’s work has been recognized with several national and international awards.

Alfredo FRANCO-OBREGON

BICEPS Lab

Research Associate Professor,
Department of Surgery,
Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
suraf@nus.edu.sg
https://medicine.nus.edu.sg/biceps-lab/

BioIonic Currents Electromagnetic Pulsing Systems: The BICEPS laboratory bridges state of the art engineering with clinical medicine and has the mandate of designing cutting-edge technologies to enhance the function and improve the metabolic benefit of muscle and the body’s stem cell pools which, in turn, will benefit heart health, stimulate joint regeneration, enhance fat burning, improve brain function and slow mental aging in the ill, physically compromised and elderly. We have recently developed a novel set of non-invasive technologies to awaken the body’s regenerative drive with as little as 10 minutes treatment per week that will truly represent a paradigm shift in how modern medicine approaches preventative medicine and rehabilitation post surgery. These technologies also help the body fight common and dangerous cancers such as breast, colorectal, gastric and prostate. Some of our cutting-edge technologies are currently being tested in human clinical trials with very promising results. The BICEPS lab will lead the world in the design and use of such technologies in the global fight against the wraths of metabolic diseases and aging.

SHAO Huilin

Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering,
College of Design and Engineering (CDE), NUS
huilin.shao@nus.edu.sg
huilinshao.com

Our research focuses on creating innovative technologies to empower diagnostics and patient care. We aim to advance personalized medicine by taking a two-pronged approach: 1) discover novel circulating biomarkers (e.g., extracellular vesicles / exosomes) for noninvasive monitoring, and 2) develop transformative biosensing technologies to enable and translate these discoveries. Our multidisciplinary interests and expertise span the fields of biology, nanomaterials science and device engineering, and have pioneered multiple platform technologies to expand the clinical reach of previously under-appreciated biomarkers in human trials.

CHEOW Lih Feng

Technology Innovations for Systems Biology Lab

Assistant Professor 
Department of Biomedical Engineering,
College of Design and Engineering (CDE), NUS
lihfeng.cheow@nus.edu.sg
https://sites.google.com/site/cheowlflab/

The Technology Innovations for Systems Biology laboratory aims to develop tools to better understand biological systems and address healthcare issues. We develop technology platforms and novel biological techniques to perform precision measurements of multiple modalities (e.g. genetic, epigenetic, transcriptomics) in individual cells, as a basis for understanding human health and diagnosing, monitoring and treating diseases. We also invent innovative technologies for bio-sample preparation and disease diagnosis to meet the evolving healthcare needs of society.

Benjamin C. K. Tee

Advanced Bio-Sensotronics Lab

Associate Professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering,
College of Design and Engineering (CDE), NUS
benjamin.tee@nus.edu.sg
benjamintee.com

The Advanced Bio-Sensotronics Lab focuses on developing soft, flexible and stretchable bio-electronic platforms suitable for next-generation high-performance sensory devices and systems. Specifically, we will first focus on creating novel biomechanical sensors to understand cellular systems at the single cell and tissue level. We aim to integrate fundamental knowledge between material science, mechanics, nano-electronics and biomedical engineering to develop cutting-edge artificial sensory devices and biotechnology systems inspired by natural biological systems.

Brian LIM

Ubicomp Lab

Associate Professor 
Department of Computer Science,
School of Computing, NUS
brianlim@nus.edu.sg
https://ubiquitous.comp.nus.edu.sg

The Ubicomp Lab focuses on developing sensor-based, context-aware, and user-centered technologies for monitoring and intervention of human activities for health and sustainability.
We apply our expertise in ubiquitous computing, human-computer interaction, Internet-of-Things, mobile computing, interpretable machine learning, and big data visualization, to develop a gamut of software toolkits, sensor platforms and mobile apps. These developments have been applied to mobile food logging, intelligible analytics and healthcare visualizations. We aim to impact consumers, service providers and decision makers through novel technology-driven interventions and new analytic tools for smartphones, smart homes and smart cities.

John S. HO

Wireless Bioelectronics Group

Associate Professor,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
College of Design and Engineering (CDE), NUS
johnho@nus.edu.sg
ece.nus.edu.sg/stfpage/hsyj/index.html

The Wireless Bioelectronics Group seeks to apply tools from electrical engineering, physics, and materials science to enable new ways to interface electronics with living systems. Technologies that we are currently developing include wireless powering systems, miniaturized neural stimulators, and wireless light delivery systems.

ONG Catherine

Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Consultant, Division of Infectious Diseases, NUH
Visiting Consultant, Tuberculosis Control Unit (TBCU), Singapore
Honorary Clinical Research Fellow, Imperial College London United Kingdom
Catherine.ong@nus.edu.sg
medicine.nus.edu.sg//medi/catonglab/

Our lab focuses on 3 areas of translational infectious diseases research: Host-pathogen interactions, biomarker discovery and host-directed therapies. Under the theme of host-pathogen interactions, we investigate the effects of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) on the secretion of human proteases from host cells which can cause tissue destruction and cell death. We analyse switch points by which potential therapeutic agents can be administered to suppress the detrimental effects of human proteases on TB-associated tissue destruction. In biomarker discovery, we evaluate highly promising biomarkers that can diagnose TB and other antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, with a view to developing rapid point-of-care tests. Under host-directed therapies, we investigate a variety of re-purposed drugs, as an adjunct therapy to TB treatment to improve patient treatment outcomes.

The lab, which comprises both BSL2 and BSL3 sections, is also part of the NUHS Tuberculosis Summit Research Programme, with active funding by the NMRC, Singapore Infectious Diseases Initiative and NUHS. We have close collaborations with the Singapore National TB Control Unit, Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) in A*Star, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (Nanyang Technology University) and the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. Internationally, our collaborators are based in Imperial College London and University of Southampton, UK.

Lab members:

Dr Miow Qing Hao, Eddy, PhD
Research Fellow
eddy.miow@nus.edu.sg
Research focus: TB host-directed therapy, cell-free DNA biomarker discovery.

Dr Hong Jia Mei, PhD
Research Fellow
hongjiamei@nus.edu.sg
Research focus: Rapid pathogen and antimicrobial resistant gene detection, murine model of CNS infections.

Ms Wang Yu, MSc
Research Associate
mdcwyu@nus.edu.sg
Research focus: Host proteases in lung infections, clinical research logistics.

Ms Thong Pei Min, BSc
Research Assistant
peimin_thong@nus.edu.sg
Research focus: Diabetes mellitus and the dysregulation of host proteases in tuberculosis.

Ms Poh Xuan Ying, MSc
PhD Student
xuanying.poh@nus.edu.sg
Research focus: Host inflammatory responses driving immunopathology in central nervous system tuberculosis.

Gloryn CHIA

Assistant Professor
Department of Pharmacy,
Faculty of Science, NUS
phagcl@nus.edu.sg
https://glorynchia.wixsite.com/website

The overarching goal of the lab is to develop next-generation vaccines and stem cell therapies for the treatment of cancer and other human diseases. We seek to identify and address current gaps in cancer vaccine development through novel platform technologies. Leveraging on the ability of stem cells to generate multiple cell-types, we aim to engineer and differentiate stem cells into cells capable of activating cytotoxic T-cells, the primary tumour-killing cells. In collaboration with our clinical partners, we hope to develop potent vaccines that will translate into effective cancer treatments.

Glenn BONNEY

Associate Professor, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Consultant Surgeon, Hepatobiliary & Pancreatic Surgery, NUH
glenn_bonney@nuhs.edu.sg

Our group is a translational project to develop mass spectrometry-based platforms for real-time pathological and surgical analysis. Assoc Prof Bonney’s primary interest is in surgery for primary and secondary malignancies of the liver, pancreas and gallbladder. Assoc Prof Bonney is currently principal investigator and collaborator on numerous national and international studies in liver and pancreas cancer.

Andy TAY Kah Ping

Assistant Professor,
Department of Biomedical Engineering,
College of Design and Engineering (CDE)

bietkpa@nus.edu.sg
https://www.andytaykp.com/

The immune system plays an important role in cancer and chronic pain – two of the most prevalent diseases our ageing society is facing. The Tay lab is developing technology to engineer immune cells and tissue micro-environment to help understand and treat these two challenging diseases. The laboratory will be launched in early 2021.

LIU Yuxin

Assistant Professor,
Department of Biomedical Engineering,
College of Design and Engineering (CDE)

lyx@nus.edu.sg
https://www.lab-liu.com/

Liu Lab focuses on developing tissue-mimicking brain-machine interface, medical wearable electronics, and precision electronic medicine. The lab uses next-generation polymeric electronic materials and micro and nanoelectronics capable of self-transforming its morphology in vivo and responding autonomously to promote rapid cellular and tissue growth. These materials can also provide high-bandwidth neural-machine communication at single-cell precision.

Jonathan LEE Wei Jie

Assistant Professor,  Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, NUH
jonathanlee@nus.edu.sg

Our research group (MicrobioGI@iHealthtech) focuses on the gut microbiome’s role in gastrointestinal cancers. We focus on platforms and technologies to develop predictive microbial markers and targeted therapies in gastrointestinal cancers. We aim to engineer tools to allow clinicians to employ microbiome-based diagnostics to detect cancer early, aid in patients’ choice of therapeutics, and monitor the treatment response. Dr Jonathan Lee is the NUH site Principal Investigator of the Early Detection and Prevention of Colorectal Cancer research project. He is also a member of the Synthetic Biology and Immunology Translation Research Programmes. Dr Lee also currently chairs the NUHS-NUS microbiome work-in-progress meetings and leads the NUH’s faecal microbiota transplant program. Dr Lee was awarded the National Medical Research Training Fellowship in 2018, where he was attached to the Broad Institute MIT-Harvard, USA, to study host-microbiota interactions through integrative multi-omic analysis. He is currently a Fellow of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore, and a member of the American Gastroenterology Association.

WU Changsheng

Assistant Professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering,
College of Design and Engineering (CDE), NUS

cwu@nus.edu.sg
https://changsheng-wu.github.io

The Changsheng Wu Research Group aims at creating sustainable and disruptive digital health solutions, by synergizing bioelectronics, energy harvesting, and advanced manufacturing.

Gao Yujia

Junior Academic Fellow

Division of Hepatobiliary & Pancreatic Surgery, Department of Surgery, National University Hospital (NUH)

Department of Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore

yujiagao@nus.edu.sg

Dr Gao Yujia is a Consultant Surgeon in Liver, Pancreas, and Liver Transplant Surgery at the National University Hospital in Singapore. As the Assistant Group Chief Technology Officer for the National University Health System, Dr Gao is involved in the research and development of immersive technology and its application in clinical care and education, and digital-twin projects. He works extensively with Mixed Reality (MR) technology, utilising MR devices to deliver cutting edge capabilities to clinicians including 3D holographic imaging, real-time computer-vision based imaged analysis, and multisource data integration. He is also responsible for the integration and implementation of 5G wireless technology for hospital infrastructure development and building of secured high-speed integrated data networks. He also serves as the Vice-Chairman of the international Holomedicine Association.