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Research & Education

NCAM 2017

NCAM 2017

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DEAR FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES,

On behalf of the organising committee, we warmly welcome you to join the 4th NCIS Annual Research Meeting (NCAM) 2017, to be held on 30 June to 1 July 2017. NCAM 2016 was successfully held on 1st July 2016, and attracted more than 250 registrants and close to 100 scientific abstracts. The meeting created a forum for clinicians and scientists to interact and showcase their cancer research work on the NCIS campus. Our theme this year is on 'Optimizing Cancer Treatments through Science'. On day 1, we will have a full-day programme including educational sessions, oral and poster presentations of submitted abstracts, and award presentation for the best abstracts.  We welcome you to submit abstracts on cancer research in the following four categories: basic science, clinical science, translational science, and nursing/paramedical/supportive care. Selected abstracts will be presented on day 1 at the main meeting. In addition, this year's NCAM will feature a half-day mini-symposium on day 2 that will focus on the latest advances in Gynae-Oncology.

This conference will provide an excellent platform for cancer physicians and researchers in Singapore to interact and develop future collaborations. We look forward to welcoming you to the 4th NCIS Annual Research Meeting (NCAM) 2017.

Dr Lee Soo Chin
Conference Chairperson
Associate Director (Research), NCIS

Prof Philip H. Koeffler
Conference Co-Chairperson
Deputy Director (Research), NCIS


Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynaecological malignancy. Recent advances in our understanding of the underlying molecular aberrations in ovarian cancer, and in the development of new drugs for ovarian cancer are now providing unique opportunities for precision medicine in the management of this disease. With the approvals of the anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) antibody bevacizumab for use in front line and recurrent ovarian cancer treatment, and the first poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, Olaparib, for use in the treatment of recurrent BRCA1/2 mutant ovarian cancer by the US FDA and EMA, it is almost certain that numerous therapeutic possibilities are yet to be explored.

This Ovarian Cancer Mini-Symposium gathers experts in the field to cover recent scientific research advancements which lead to improved patient management. This is a continuous effort to bring together the collaborative group of ovarian cancer experts following the success of Singapore Ovarian Cancer Symposium held in 2010, 2012, and 2014. In conjunction with NCAM 2017, the Ovarian Cancer Mini-Symposium hopes to provide updated perspectives to a boarder audience within the oncology profession to create more awareness of this deadly disease.

 

Ruby Yun-Ju Huang 
Mini Symposium Chairperson
Senior Resident Physician, NUH
Principal Investigator, CSI Singapore


 


Prof H. Phillip Koeffler
Deputy Director (Research), NCIS
Senior Principal Investigator, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, NUS
Professor, Department of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Professor of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center/UCLA 

 


A/Prof Lee Soo Chin
Associate Director (Research), NCIS
Senior Consultant, Department of Haematology-Oncology, NCIS
Senior Principal Investigator, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, NUS

 


Dr Lim Siew Eng
Associate Director (Education), NCIS
Senior Consultant, Department of Haematology-Oncology, NCIS

 


Dr Yong Wei Peng
Associate Director (Research), NCIS
Senior Consultant, Department of Haematology-Oncology, NCIS
Principal Associate, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, NUS

 


Dr Ruby Yun-Ju Huang
Senior Resident Physician & Clinician Scientist, Division of Gynaecologic Oncology, Department of O&G, NUH
Principal Investigator, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, NUS
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS

 


Dr Chetan Dhamne
Associate Consultant, Department of Paediatrics, Department of Haematology and Oncology, NUH

 


Dr Sudhakar Jha
Principal Investigator, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, NUS
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS

 


Prof Jimmy So
Head & Senior Consultant, Division of Surgical Oncology, NCIS
Director and Senior Consultant, Division of General Surgery (Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery), University Surgical Cluster, NUH Professor of Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS

 


Dr Chan Ching Wan
Head & Senior Consultant, Breast Service, Department of General Surgery, NUH

 


Dr Balamurugan Vellayappan
Consultant, Department of Radiation Oncology, NCIS
Research Director, Department of Radiation Oncology, NCIS
Assistant Professor, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS 

 


Dr Samantha Yang Peiling
Consultant, Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine, NUH
Assistant Professor, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS

 


Dr Soon Yu Yang
Associate Consultant, Department of Radiation Oncology, NCIS

 


APN Jedidah Lieow
Advance Practice Nurse/ Nurse Clinician, Department of Haematology-Oncology, Haematopoeitic Progenitor Stem Cell Transplant (HSCT)


​Plenary Speakers

Prof Sir David Lane

Professor Sir David Lane is one of the scientists credited with the landmark discovery of cancer gene p53 in 1979. p53, named by David the "Guardian of the genome" is the most frequently mutated gene in human cancer as more than half of human tumours contain mutations in the gene. 

He was previously the Director of the Cancer Research UK Cell Transformation Research Group and Professor of Oncology at the University of Dundee in Scotland. He had also held the position of Chief Scientist with Cancer Research UK. In 1996 Sir David founded the biotechnology company Cyclacel now listed on NASDAQ. Sir David was also the Scientific Director of the Ludwig Institute developing their immune oncology centre in Lausanne. 

Sir David is currently Chief Scientist of Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and also the Chairman of Chugai Pharmbody Research Pte Ltd (CPR) which he helped to attract to Singapore. CPR represents a $400 million 10-year investment by Chugai in research located in the Synapse building at the Biopolis, Singapore. The company currently employs over 90 highly qualified researchers developing new antibody therapeutics. Sir David's A*Star p53 laboratory is working on peptide and antibody based therapies that target the p53 pathway and on the evolution and function of tumor suppressors. Much of the work has been in collaboration with Dr Chandra Verma's team at A*Star BII. 

For his efforts in cancer research, Sir David was knighted in 2000. He also received the Cancer Research UK Lifetime Achievement Award – a prize that recognises his pioneering research that led to the discovery of p53. Sir David has also been awarded a number of International Prizes including the Paul Ehrlich Prize , the Josef Steiner Prize, the Brupbacher Prize, the Buchanan Medal of the RS and the Royal Medal of the RSE.  

Prof Jack A Gilbert

Professor Jack A Gilbert earned his Ph.D. from Unilever and Nottingham University, UK in 2002, and received his postdoctoral training at Queens University, Canada. He subsequently returned to the UK in 2005 to Plymouth Marine Laboratory at a senior scientist until his move to Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago in 2010. Currently, Professor Gilbert is the Director of the Microbiome Center and a Professor of Surgery at the University of Chicago. He is also Group Leader for Microbial Ecology at Argonne National Laboratory, Research Associate at the Field Museum of Natural History, Scientific Fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory, and the Yeoh Ghim Seng Visiting Professorship in Surgery at the National University of Singapore. Dr. Gilbert uses molecular analysis to test fundamental hypotheses in microbial ecology. He has authored more than 250 peer reviewed publications and book chapters on metagenomics and approaches to ecosystem ecology. He is the founding Editor in Chief of mSystems journal. In 2014 he was recognized on Crain's Business Chicago's 40 Under 40 List, and in 2015 he was listed as one of the 50 most influential scientists by Business Insider, and in the Brilliant Ten by Popular Scientist. In 2016 he won the Altemeier Prize from the Surgical Infection Society, and the WH Pierce Prize from the Society for Applied Microbiology for research excellence. 

Educational Speakers

Dr Anand Jeyasekharan

Anand obtained his undergraduate medical degree from Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore, India in 2002, and then worked to fulfil his service obligation to CMC as a medical officer in a rural cancer centre in south India, where he developed an interest in the biology of malignant disease. He received a Gates Cambridge Scholarship (2004) towards research training through a PhD in Oncology at the University of Cambridge UK (Gonville and Caius College), under the mentorship of Prof. Ashok Venkitaraman. Following a post-doctoral fellowship in Cambridge as a Wolfson Junior Research Fellow, he joined the National University Hospital Singapore in 2010 to complete his clinical training in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. 

He currently holds a joint appointment at the Cancer Science Institute, where he has run a basic science laboratory since 2013. His laboratory focuses on understanding defects in DNA repair in tumours, and the development of biomarkers of these pathways for clinical use. Anand holds multiple internal and nationally funded grants to support his research, and is also actively involved in the Clinician-Scientist Unit at the NUH, where he administers the National University Hospital Clinician-Scientist Program for Residents (NCSP-R). His clinical interest is in aggressive B-cell neoplasms, and he is a member of the NUH lymphoma team. 

Prof Charlie Gourley

Charlie Gourley graduated in Genetics and Medicine from Glasgow University in 1991 and 1994 respectively. 

From 1998 to 2005 he trained in Medical Oncology at the Edinburgh Cancer Centre, during which time he obtained a PhD in ovarian cancer genetics (Edinburgh University) and an NHS Education for Scotland Clinician Scientist Award (2004). 

He was appointed Senior Lecturer in Medical Oncology at the University of Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre in 2005, Reader in Medical Oncology in 2011 and Professor of Medical Oncology (Personal Chair) in 2012. He received a Scottish Senior Clinical Fellowship Award in 2010. 

Professor Gourley's research focuses on trials of novel targeted agents in gynaecological cancer and the use of translational readouts from these studies in order to facilitate individualisation of care. He has led research demonstrating the propensity for ovarian cancer arising in BRCA1/2 germline mutation carriers to metastasise to liver, lungs and spleen (J Clin Oncol 2010). He has made major contributions to research leading to the licensing of bevacizumab (NEJM 2011) and olaparib (NEJM 2012, Lancet Oncol 2014 and 2016) as novel therapies for ovarian cancer. His team is currently leading a project to perform genomic characterisation of 800 high grade serous ovarian cancer patients from across Scotland in order to determine the clinical consequences of molecular subgroups defined by sequence and copy number and use these findings in order to facilitate the recruitment of patients into trials of molecularly stratified novel therapies. 

He is the current chair of the Gynaecological Cancer Intergroup (GCIG) Translational Committee, sits on the Cancer Research UK Experimental Medicine Expert Review Panel and the Scottish Medicines Consortium. 

Dr Wee Hwee Lin

Dr Wee Hwee Lin obtained her BSc (Pharm) (Hons) and PhD from the Department of Pharmacy, National University of Singapore (NUS), in 2001 and 2006, respectively. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the same Department and a joint Assistant Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, NUS. She seeks to inform policy making through translational research with active engagement of the stakeholders including clinicians, patients and policy makers. In 2011, Dr Wee received the International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL) Young Investigator Award and she served as an elected member of the Board of Directors of ISOQOL from 2013-2015. She was also an associate editor of Health and Quality of Life Outcomes (2012 – 2016), a BMC journal on health-related quality of life. 

Dr Wee's research encompasses health-related quality of life, cost-effectiveness analyses, patient preferences and medication adherence. Her current work involves understanding patient preferences for alternative high cost cancer treatments, women's preferences for gene testing for non-familial breast cancer risk and value of high cost therapy from patient's perspective. She is currently a member of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Personalized Medicine Working Group. 

Hear the Journey Speakers 

A/Prof Dan Yock Young

A/Prof Dan Yock Young obtained his basic medical degree (MBBS) from the National University of Singapore in 1994 and his internal medicine basic specialty degree in 1998 with a Master of Internal Medicine (MMED S'pore) and Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, MRCP (UK). He went on pursue advanced specialty training in Gastroenterology and Hepatology and obtained his Gastroenterology fellowship from the Academy of Medicine, Singapore (FAMS S'pore) in 2003. He was awarded the A*STAR International Fellowship and he spent 2 years at University of Washington researching liver stem cells under the mentorship of Prof Nelson Fausto. This led to the award of his PhD degree from NUS in 2010. 

He has vast clinical interests in Hepatology which includes viral hepatitis B and C, liver transplantation and liver cirrhosis. He is a clinician scientist and his research interests include cost effectiveness of clinical treatment, liver cancer oncogenesis, liver progenitor cells and their therapeutic applications. 

A/Prof Allen Yeoh

Associate Professor Allen Yeoh is the VIVA-Goh Foundation A/Prof in Pediatric Oncology in NUS. He graduated from NUS and completed his Fellowship in St Jude Children's Research Hospital (USA) from 1999 to 2001. A/Prof Allen Yeoh is the first Singapore doctor to receive the prestigious American Society of Hematology Merit Award Award in 2001 for his pioneering work in gene expression profiling in childhood leukaemia. 

Allen is the Principal Investigator of the Malaysia-Singapore ALL 2003 study which successfully used minimal residual disease to tailor intensity of treatment with an excellent outcome of 80% 6-year EFS. A/Prof Allen Yeoh's interest lies in treatment and biology of childhood leukemias focusing on translational research and biomarker discovery. 

He won numerous national and international outstanding research awards including the Singapore Youth Award for Science and Technology by the National Youth Council, Singapore (2002) and the Asian Innovation Award (Gold, 2003), Mochtar-Riady Innovative Research Award (2013) and Singapore Ministry of Health National Medical Excellence Award for Clinical Investigator (2014). He is funded by Singapore National Medical Research Council talent awards since 2005. 

A/Prof Allen Yeoh chairs the Clinician Scientist Unit and Masters of Clinical Investigation program to train clinician scientists. He is keenly involved in developing Clinician-scientist training and development programs and provides guidance and mentorship to budding clinician-scientists. 






​​We are proud to receive a total of 134 outstanding abstracts for NCAM 2017. Click on the following links to view the latest scientific breakthrough in the battle of cancer:


We would like to thank the following Sponsors for making this conference possible:

​Platinum Sponsors

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Gold Sponsors

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​​​​For enquiries on NCAM, email enquiries_ncam@nuhs.edu.sg.