Principal Investigator

Professor Bin Tean TEH

Director, SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Biodiversity Medicine (BD-MED)
Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Research), National Cancer Centre Singapore
Deputy Director (Global Relations), SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Precision Medicine
Professor, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore
Senior Principal Investigator, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore
Senior Group Leader, Genome Institute of Singapore


Dr Bin Tean Teh obtained his MD (1992) from the University of Queensland, Australia and his PhD (1997) from the Karolinska Institute, Sweden.

Following postdoctoral works in multiple endocrine neoplasia 1 at Karolinska Institute, Dr Teh joined the Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) in 2000 as a Senior Scientific Investigator heading the Laboratory of Cancer Genetics. In 2007, Dr Teh was appointed as the founding Director of the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS)-VARI laboratory, which serves as a bridge between translational research and clinical medicine. In 2010 he received the Singapore Translational Research Investigator Award (STaR) and relocated to Singapore and is currently a full professor in Cancer and Stem Cell Biology (CSCB) Programme at Duke-NUS. He served as the SingHealth Group Director for Translational Research from 2010-2012.

His laboratory focuses on genomic studies of cancers common among Asian populations, using tools such as high-throughput genomic platforms and correlation studies with clinicopathological information.

He holds Adjunct Professorships at several universities worldwide including Baylor College of Medicine, USA, Nanjing University and Sun Yat-Sen University, China and the Karolinska Institute, Sweden.

Dr Teh has published extensively, with over 400 publications in high impact scientific journals (h-index of 82). He has been member of various editorial boards for journals including Lancet Oncology, Cancer Research, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, International Journal of Oncology, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Clinical Genitourinary Cancer, and the American Journal of Translational Research.

Lab Members

 

Dr Frederick KOH, Assoc Prof, frederick.koh.h.x@singhealth.com.sg

Assoc Prof Frederick Koh is a Consultant in the Department of Colorectal Surgery, Division of General Surgery, Sengkang General Hospital. His clinical interests include the various aspects of colorectal surgical oncology, proctology as well as acute care surgery. Dr Koh is well versed in both laparoscopic and conventional open techniques of surgery.
Other than clinical contributions, Dr Koh places emphasis on the importance of Academic Surgery. He has published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and has held grants and has experience in conducting both population-based and trial-based research. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Clinical and Translation Sciences with Duke-NUS investigating the regulatory mechanism of sarcopenia in surgical patients under the tutelage of Prof Teh Bin Tean.

Dr Tun Kiat KO, PhD (Cambridge), Senior Research Fellow, ko.tun.kiat@nccs.com.sg

Tun Kiat current research interest is to understand how epigenetic events drive oncogenesis. He is focussing on studying the relationship between changes in epigenetic events with disease progression and drug resistance in various cancers.
Previously, he was involved in studying the role of epigenetics in driving disease progression in chronic myeloid leukemia.

Dr Kah Suan LIM, Research Fellow, lim.kah.suan@nccs.com.sg

Kah Suan obtained her B.Sc from NTU in Singapore and subsequently did her Ph.D studying metabolic changes in high grade astrocytomas in Johns Hopkins University. During her Ph.D, she was awarded the Excellence in Translational Research Award twice for her work. After her Ph.D, she obtained the Wong Family Award and later the A*STAR International Fellowship to do postdoctoral research in Dana Farber Cancer Centre. During her postdoctoral fellowship, her research won the Best Poster Award for Basic Research at the annual Fanconi Anemia Research Fund meeting and the prestigious Scholar-in-training Award at the annual American Association for Cancer Research conference. She is currently doing research on radiation oncology with a specific focus on proton beam therapy.

Dr Jui Wan LOH, Research Fellow, loh.jui.wan@nccs.com.sg

Jui Wan is mainly involved in the translational research, particularly angiosarcoma and fibrosarcoma. She previously studied chronic lymphocytic leukemia at Rutgers for her graduate work.

Mr Liang Kai KOH, Scientific Administrator, koh.liang.kai@nccs.com.sg

Liang Kai received his M.Sc. from the National University of Singapore and subsequently joined the group in 2013. He is currently the lab manager for the group's Academia lab, with procurement, grant management and regulatory affairs under his portfolio. Liang Kai also assists with Prof Teh's scheduling and administrative matters.

Mr Cedric NG, Senior Research Associate, nmsncy@nccs.com.sg

Exploring innovative & enterprising ideas that are viable & translatable to patient care. I am the team leader in the NGS platform (Integrated Genomics Platform) under the leadership of Prof Teh. Our work deals with unlocking genetic information from archived samples (i.e FFPE from pathology labs) & single cells isolation technologies. These genetic materials are interrogated using current cutting edge NGS techniques generating valuable data.

Mrs Zhimei LI, Senior Research Associate, li.zhimei@nccs.com.sg

Zhimei is primarily responsible for establishment of animal models of different types of carcinoma including SQ, orthotopic, metastasis model treated with interest compounds through different routes and also involved in the in-vitro relevant assays such as cell culture, gene cloning, 3D culture.

Mr Hong Lee HENG, Senior Research Officer, ncmhhl@nccs.com.sg

In my current position at the Laboratory of Cancer Epigenome, National Cancer Centre Singapore, I was involved in genome-wide CRISPR knockout screens for targets that are potential as an anti-cancer targets.

Miss Jing Yi LEE, Research Officer, lee.jing.yi@nccs.com.sg

After completing her BSc (Biomedical Science) in Griffith University, Australia in December 2016, she joined the team in March 2017. She plays a dual role in the team. As the assistant laboratory manager, she assists with the laboratory's day-to-day operations, handles procurement, safety audits and administrative matters pertaining to IRB and HBRA compliance. Additionally, she maintains and manages the laboratory's samples inventory. Her past research roles included assisting Dr Huang Dachuan in driving his renal cell carcinoma and sarcoma projects. She currently performs sample preparations for genomic studies and assists Peiyong with renal cell carcinoma epigenetics studies.

Mr Dave Yong Xiang NG, Research Assistant, dave.ng@duke-nus.edu.sg

After graduating with a BSc Biological Sciences degree from the University of Dundee in Scotland in 2019, I decided to gain some professional experience before pursuing further studies. I assist in both research and administrative tasks under the guidance of Dr Jason Chan and Dr Kah Suan Lim. My past research involves working with Trypanosoma brucei cells to characterise the transporters involved that cause drug resistance in patients with African Sleeping Disease under Prof. Mark Field and Dr Juan Quintana at the Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research, University of Dundee.

 

Dr Xiaosai YAO, Research Fellow, xsyao@imcb.a-star.edu.sg

Xiaosai is studying epigenetic changes in kidney cancer samples, as a result of driver mutations. She previously worked on circulating tumor cells at MIT for her graduate work.

Dr Jing Han HONG, Research Fellow, jhhong@imcb.a-star.edu.sg

Jing Han joined Prof Teh's lab in 2017. She is involved in studying epigenetic changes in renal cell carcinoma.

Dr Sheng Rong NG, Research Fellow, ngsr@imcb.a-star.edu.sg

Sheng Rong received his B.A. from the University of Cambridge and his PhD from MIT, where he worked in the lab of Prof. Tyler Jacks. His thesis research focused on the use of genetically engineered mouse models to investigate mechanisms of tumour progression and metastasis in small cell lung cancer. He is currently developing mouse models for various cancers of interest in Prof. Teh's lab.

Miss Michelle NG, Research Officer, swng@imcb.a-star.edu.sg

I'm working in IMCB as a research officer for Dr Yao Xiaosai.

 

Dr Peiyong GUAN , Scientist, guan_peiyong@gis.a-star.edu.sg

Peiyong is interested in dissecting the interplays of epigenomics and genomic dysregulations in oncogenesis, metastasis, and drug resistance through multi-omics integration and drug screening, with a focus on rare cancers. He worked on epigenomic and genomic alterations in non-clear cell renal cell carcinoma and ameloblastoma during his graduate studies at Duke-NUS Medical School, with help and supervision from Prof. Teh.

 

Alumni

Dr Choon Kiat ONG, Senior Scientist

I joined Prof Teh's laboratory as a Research Fellow in 2007 and left in 2015 as a Senior Scientist. I was involved in assisting the PI in operation and management of the laboratory where we grew from a small group of 3 staffs to a strong research team of about 20 staffs. Scientifically, I was one of the scientists leading the genomic research for cholangiocarcinoma and breast fibroepithelial tumor. Currently, I am the principal investigator leading the Lymphoma Genomic Translational Research Laboratory at the National Cancer Centre Singapore.

Dr Jing TAN, Senior Scientist

Dr Tan Jing received his Ph.D. from National University of Singapore in 2012. After 1 year of postdoctoral training in Genome Institute of Singapore, he joined National Cancer Centre Singapore as senior scientist in 2013. He is interested in cancer genomics and cancer therapeutics. Specifically, he focus on genome-wide mapping of the driver mutations in breast fibroepithelial tumors and characterization of the therapeutic activity of JAK3 inhibitors in NK/T cell lymphoma. He has published multiple first-authored papers in Nature Genetics, Cancer Cell, Cancer Discovery and Genes and Development. Dr Tan is now a principal investigator at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, China.

Dr Song Ling POON, Senior Research Fellow

Dr Song Ling Poon received her Ph.D. degree from the University of British Columbia in Canada. Subsequently, she joined National Cancer Centre Singapore to conduct her postdoctoral training in translational research. Her principal research interests circumscribe the topic of genetic instability in cancer cells. She seeks to utilize next generation sequencing in conjunction with high throughput screening to elucidate the roles of aberrant signaling pathways in cancer cell biology for the development of cancer therapeutics. She has published widely in leading journals including Nature Genetics, Science Translational Medicine, and Cancer Discovery. Currently, Dr Poon is the project manager and medical scientific liaison of ACT Genomics.

Dr Maarja-Liisa NAIRISM Ä GI, Research Fellow

Dr Maarja-Liisa Nairism ä gi obtained her PhD in Molecular Biology in 2011 from Aarhus University, Denmark. As a research fellow in Prof. Bin Tean Teh's lab she studied the genomics of solid cancers such as cholangiocarcinoma and pancreatic cancer, and performed functional experiments. She took over the management of all lymphoma projects in the lab and subsequently contributed to the founding of the Lymphoma Genomic Translational Research Laboratory in National Cancer Centre Singapore where she is currently a Research Fellow.

Dr Apinya JUSAKUL, Research Fellow

Apinya was a research fellow in the Department of Cancer and Stem Cell Biology, Duke-NUS medical school. Her work focuses specially on the genomic and epigenomic profiling in biliary tract cancers including cholangiocarinoma and gallbladder cancer. She is now a faculty member of the Department of Immunology and Blood Bank, Faculty of Associated Medical Science, Khon Kaen University, Thailand.

Dr Dachuan HUANG, Senior Research Fellow

Dr Huang received his Ph.D. from National University of Singapore. His work focused on translational cancer research in renal cell carcinoma and sarcoma.

Dr Jing Quan LIM, Research Fellow

Managed the bioinformatics wing of the team. With a general interest in translational and precision medicine.

Dr Po-Hsien LEE, Research Fellow

My research interest is to study structural and functional properties of biomolecules by computational approaches. During my PhD years, I developed software toolkits to detect pockets inside protein structures and to predict pore-lining residues of alpha-helical transmembrane proteins. I also performed Brownian Dynamics simulation to estimate the protein permeation rate through nanopores. In Prof. Teh's research group, I closely cooperate with Dr Ley Moy Ng who is an expert of X-ray crystallography. We adopt computational and experimental techniques to screen compounds for nuclear receptors that involve in tumorigenesis of breast cancer. An in silico high-throughput virtual screening pipeline is built for potential ligands of nuclear receptors. Biomedical assays such as thermal-shift assay, reporter assay and mammalian 2-hybrid assay are conducted to validate computational suggestions.

Dr Pauline ONG, Research Fellow

High throughput screening including both arrayed screening and pooled screening.

Dr Ronald Fook Seng LEE, Research Fellow

I joined the team in 2017 and worked on the development and application of single cell genomic technologies in the group.

Dr Amrita NARGUND, Research Fellow

Amrita Nargund was born and raised in Mumbai, India. She received her B.Sc (Microbiology) from University of Mumbai, and, M.S. and Ph.D. (Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry) from Georgia State University, USA. She pursued her Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the field of Cell Biology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where she studied the mechanism of regulation of mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) and how it preserves mitochondrial function during stress by re-routing metabolism (Published: Science, 2012 and Molecular Cell, 2015). She then transitioned into the field of Cancer Biology at MSKCC, where she developed a metabolic cancer (ccRCC) disease mouse model (published: Cell Reports, 2017). She was in Prof. Bin Tean Teh's lab to study metabolism in ccRCC.

Dr Li Mei NG, Research Fellow

Dr Ng obtained her PhD (2013) from the National University of Singapore. Her doctoral research, performed under reknowned structural biologist Dr Eric Xu (Distinguished Director of VARI-SIMM Research Center), provided structural and mechanistic evidence which unraveled the long-standing scientific mystery of the identity of abscisic acid receptors. Her structural studies of the entire core abscisic acid signaling pathway has been published in top journals including Nature and Science and featured as one of top 10 Breakthroughs of 2009 by Science, one of Top 10 Signaling Breakthroughs by Science Signaling and Research Highlights by Nature Cell Biology. Dr Ng joined Cancer Science Institute of Singapore as a Research Fellow in 2013 to set up a new lab under PI Prof Teh Bin Tean. Her current interest is in the molecular and structural studies of cancer-associated proteins using X-ray crystallography and biochemical/biophysical methods and the development of efficient protein expression/studies techniques.

Dr Mun Juinn CHOW, Research Fellow

Mun Juinn obtained his B.Sc.(Hons) 1st Class in Chemistry in 2011 and his PhD in 2015, both from the National University Singapore. During his PhD and first Postdoc, he managed several multidisciplinary research projects, working closely with both Chemists and Molecular Biologists in the development of anticancer drug discovery platforms and the elucidation of drug candidate mode-of-action by integrating chemical synthesis, structure-activity relationship, biochemical and molecular biological studies. He is passionate about cancer research, particularly in drug-resistant cancer treatment strategies and is currently the "in-house chemist" in Prof Teh Bin Tean's Lab, working on target-based drug discovery and isogenic cell lines generation for drug efficacy studies. Outside the lab, Mun Juinn is an avid guitarist/singer and self-professed foodie.

Dr Chern Han YONG, Research Fellow

I have been a part of Prof Teh's lab at Duke-NUS since 2015, working on bioinformatics in cancer genomics and epigenomics. I obtained my Undergraduate and Master's degrees in 1997 and 2004 respectively in Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, where I worked on neural networks, genetic algorithms, and the evolution of multi-agent cooperative behavior. From 2005-2008, I worked at the A*Star Institute for Infocomm Research, where I did research on interactive media and a DJ-scratching sound synthesis technology. In 2014 I obtained my PhD in Computational Biology at NUS, where I worked on prediction of protein complexes from high-throughput protein-protein interaction data. In my spare time I enjoy playing music and making noise.

Dr Ian JunJie TAY, Research Fellow

Ian completed his B.Eng at Imperial College London and investigated the role of mechanical stimulation on endothelial cells in initiating pore formation for his final year thesis under Dr Darryl Overby's supervision. After his undergraduate studies, he worked as a RO in Dr Prabha Sampath's laboratory, to characterize a novel lncRNA which is expressed uniquely during human ESC differentiation. He subsequently obtained his Ph.D from MIT, where he developed technologies to perform a first-of-its-kind screen for identification of novel DNA repair and apoptotic genes under the tutelage of Profs. Bevin Engelward and Scott Floyd. He was studying cellular mechanisms for ionizing radiation resistance, as well as modulation of immune activation post radiation therapy.

Dr Po-Hung LIN, Research Assistant

I am a clinician from Dept. Urology of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan. My subspecialty is Uro-oncology. I was attached to Lab of Cancer Epigenome for 22 months (07/2017-04/2019) for basic research. In Taiwan I spent most of the time in clinical works. I have attended to Graduate Institute of Chang Gung University and got the credits, but my hand-on web lab experience was limited. Therefore, I practiced and got familiar with web lab technique for advancing uro-oncology research.

Dr Luyu XIE, Data Scientist, xie.luyu@nccs.com.sg

Luyu joined Prof Teh's lab in 2019. He was mainly responsible for sequencing data processing and analysis. His research interests included NGS data analysis methodology and precision medicine.

Ms Sanjanaa NAGARAJAN, Research Associate

Sanjanaa was a part of the bioinformatics team. She received her MSc (Bioinformatics) from Nanyang Technological University. Her work involved data analysis of high throughput sequencing data, copynumber data and synthetic lethality studies.

Miss Gwendolene NG, Research Associate

I was under the charge of Dr Sim Yirong and also a part of the Integrated Genomic Platform Team. I helped out with sample preparation of FFPE tissues for their sequencing on the Next Generation Sequencing platform.

Miss Suet Far WONG, Research Associate

Member of the Integrated Genomics Platform (IGP) team. Assisting in Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and Nanostrings work.

Miss Swe Swe MYINT, Senior Research Officer

Collecting patient tissue samples and blood of all the projects, Cataloging, storage and organize information, Extraction of DNA, RNA from patient tissue samples, Handling IRB renewal for tissue collection.

Ms Vikneswari RAJASEGARAN, Senior Research Officer

Part of the Integrated Genomic Platform Team (IGP). Specialises in Next Generation Sequencing & Difficult Samples Preparation such as FFPE, LCM & low input materials.

Miss Joanna KOH, Research Officer

Joanna received her BSc (Microbiology) from The University of Queensland, Australia in December 2019. During her honours year, she worked with a new insect-specific flavivirus, Binjari virus, to characterise its host-restriction mechanisms under Prof Roy Hall. Joanna was a returning member of TBT lab. Prior to her undergraduate studies, she was assisting Dr Yao Xiaosai in epigenomic profiling of ccRCC. She supported projects in the lab with her ChIP-seq expertise.

Ms Yurike LAURENSIA, Research Officer

I received my bachelor degree from Atma Jaya Catholic University where I studied Biotechnology. I did a short-term internship in Genome Institute of Singapore, A-star, before I started to work in Prof Teh's lab. I worked as Research Officer that helped my supervisor, Dr Maarja-Liisa Nairism ä gi, who focused her attention in lymphoma research. A year after that, I was shifted into Lymphoma Genomic Translational Research Laboratory, that is led by Dr Ong Choon Kiat, which is my current lab now. In this lab, I still help Dr Maarja-Liisa Nairism ä gi to do some experiment in genomic and functional study to seek understanding in several subtypes of T-cell lymphoma. Some of the works that I do are Sanger sequencing, Targeted Sequencing, Cloning, and etc. I also help to maintain stock levels of laboratory supplies and facilitate weekly lab meeting.

Ms Ee Yan SIEW, Research Officer

Siew Ee Yan was a research officer who worked extensively on the in vivo studies of the laboratory. Her work at NCCS contributed to the publication of several scientific papers by the laboratory. She also supported the day-to-day running of the laboratory. Ee Yan graduated with B.Sc (Hons) from Murdoch University in 2014.

Mr Jia Liang LOH, Research Officer

I was in charge of collecting, cataloging and managing patient samples and data, and subsequent DNA & RNA extraction and distribution for downstream work.

Dr Cheng YUAN, Research Assistant

I am a visiting Ph.D student from Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), China. As a part of the joint-education programme of SYSU, I joined Prof. Teh's team from October 2019. Majoring in Surgical Oncology, I am interested in solving clinical problems of several cancer types, comprehensively using statistical, bioinformatical and biological techniques.

Ms Meina LAU, Research Officer

Meina was the Laboratory Executive of Prof Teh's lab at Cancer Science Institute (CSI), NUS. She was involved in carrying out experiments, lab management as well as the training of students.

Ms Wan Lu Jane PANG, Research Officer

I was assisting my PI, Dr Ong Choon Kiat, in various research projects as well as laboratory management and administration. We studied mainly T-cell and NK-cells lymphoma in vitro and in vivo. My primary role was to establish and maintain patient-derived xenograft (PDX) mouse models. These PDX models were used in our in vivo drug treatment experiments.

Mr Yung Ting HSIAO, Research Officer

I possess a Master's degree in Biology Sciences and Technology from China Medical University at Taiwan, and now I've focus on research during my Ph. D. degree for 4 years. I joined Prof Teh's lab for academic training in 2017, and involved in studying epigenetic changes in renal cell carcinoma.

Miss Giovani Claresta WIJAYA, Research Officer

I graduated from Faculty of Biotechnology, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia. During my undergraduate study, I got an opportunity to do my internship at Genome Institute of Singapore for 5 months. I joined Prof Teh's Laboratory since 2013. Since then, I helped my supervisior Dr Tan Jing to do the experiments which focuses on functional study in phylodes tumor, natural Killer T Cell lymphoma, and Renal Carcinoma Cancer. In addition, I trained the internship student to do their experiment.

Ms Aisyah BASHIR, Research Officer

I have started off my first career in CSI under Professor Teh's lab upon graduation from NTU with my Hons in Biological Sciences. I believe that I would be able to bring value to the research team through my knowledge and also gain valuable experience and skills throughout my journey here.