Invited Speakers

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Dr. Pei Jye Voon

Dr Pei Jye Voon is the Head and Consultant Medical Oncologist, Department of Radiotherapy and Oncology, Hospital Umum Sarawak. He obtained his MRCP (UK) and Master of Medicine (Internal Medicine) from National University of Singapore in 2007. Subsequently, he received his advanced specialist training in Medical Oncology from National University Hospital Singapore. He has recently completed his Phase 1 Drug Development clinical research fellowship at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University of Toronto, Canada.
He is an active investigator for numerous cancer trials encompassing phase 1 through to phase 4 studies. He has keen interest in oncology development therapeutic, health related quality of life and health care delivery as well as cancer genetic and pharmacogenomic. Dr Voon has published in various peer reviewed journals. He is a recipient for Hold’em for Life Oncology Fellowship Award, University of Toronto and he recently won the Scholar Training Award from AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics 2021.

Dr. Joshua Kai Xun Tay

Dr Joshua Tay is a Consultant in the Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery at the National University Hospital, Singapore. He obtained his PhD in Cancer Biology from Stanford University with a focus on cancer genomics. Joshua currently co-leads a genomics lab at the National University of Singapore providing full pipeline micro-dissected gene expression profiling with the goal of identifying biological subtypes of cancer for personalized care.

Prof. Dr. Sok Ching Cheong

Professor Cheong leads the Translational Cancer Biology and Digital Health Research Units at Cancer Research Malaysia. She is also the current Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali Professorial Chair in University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. Her research aims to improve management and survival of cancer patients through the understanding of the underlying molecular changes, and through the development of novel treatment approaches, focusing on head and neck cancers. These include the development of immunotherapy based on head and neck cancer antigens that will undergo clinical trials in 2022. Further, using CRISPR-Cas9 functional screens, her team has identified novel targets for head and neck cancer that are currently being studied. Professor Cheong has received grants from national and international funding bodies including the Newton-Ungku Omar Fund, Newton Fund Impact Scheme, Global Challenges Research Fund and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation SMART Fund, amongst others. In recognition of her research contributions, she has received several national and international scientific awards, most recently the President’s Award by the International Association of Oral Maxillofacial Pathologist (IAOP).

Dr. Anna Chi Man Tsang

Dr Tsang is the Assistant Professor in the Department of Anatomical and Cellular Pathology of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). She obtained her PhD and postdoctoral training in the University of Hong Kong (HKU), and was then employed as Research Assistant Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences. In 2011, she got the Young Investigator Award in the 18th Hong Kong International Congress of Cancer. With the award of the University of Hong Kong/China Medical Board Grant in 2013, she was appointed as a visiting scholar to examine live-cell invasion processes using advanced optical microscopies in King’s College London, UK. From 2018, she has also been appointed as a Honorary Assistant Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences in HKU. In 2021, she received the Faculty Innovation Award from the Faculty of Medicine of CUHK. Her research term has made great efforts on elucidation of the viral-host interplays in NPC pathogenesis, and uncovered EBV persistent latent infection as an early event in the development of NPC. She has published a total of 67 papers with a H-index of 29. Her recent researches focus on (i) identifying novel and effective EBV-induced tumour markers as therapeutic targets of NPC, (ii) utilizing newly established NPC patient-derived xenograft systems for preclinical drug testing, (iii) developing 2D and 3D live-cell imaging to examine cancer cell invasion into matrix, and (iv) building up humanized mice platform for assessing the immune evasion properties of NPC cells in related to genetic depositions and EBV infection.

Dr. Reagan Entigu Linton

Dr Reagan Entigu has worked as COVID-19 PCR laboratory manager for one of Malaysia’s biggest diagnostic companies until recently. He was involved in establishing one of the earliest PCR laboratories approved by the Malaysia Ministry of Health in Sarawak for COVID-19 testing. He worked alongside with various healthcare institutions by sharing valuable knowledge in diagnostic tests available in particular the early phase of the pandemic.
He earned his MSc in Virology from University of Sarawak and then continued his PhD in Biology at Swinburne University of Technology specialising in drug screening for nasopharyngeal carcinoma research. He carried out gene expression and cell cycle analysis in studying the effect of drug combination at cell culture level. He has been interested in virology and oncology research especially discovering potential bioactive compounds and drug combination study. During his PhD study, he has collaborated with various universities and handled various grants. He was also an invited scholar to Central Queensland University as part of his PhD study.

Prof. Dr. Sai Peng Sim

Professor Sim is the Head of Department of the Department of Paraclinical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. She obtained her PhD from University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, New Jersey, USA. Her interest has always been in cancer research. She started her research career on topisomerase as anticancer drug target. Mainly using in vitro and cell culture system for screening as well as mechanism study. By chance, her research direction shifted to apoptosis and since then, looking at apoptosis as a possible mechanism of carcinogenesis, especially in leukaemia. Her interest in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) emerged upon appreciation of the complex karyotype of NPC patients, and wonder over the mechanism leading to those non-random chromosome rearrangements. Her work focused on environmental risk factors of NPC that induce apoptosis. Her lab’s effort is to try to link the various factors and to investigate the role of chromatin structure in determining the sites of chromosome rearrangements. Her research projects had been supported by internal grants as well as external grants, including funding from Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Science and Innovation as well as Ministry of Health.