Our People
Dr Gong Min
Senior Research Fellow
Yang Qian
Research Associate (Biostatistics)
Lee Jie Ning Jovin
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Xue Ting is research assistant under the Bia-Echo Asia Centre for Reproductive Longevity and Equality (ACRLE). She graduated with a first-class honors degree in Biomedical Sciences at Northumbria University in 2020. She has one published manuscript as the first author in her final year of university. She is experienced in animal handling, and has past experiences with veterinary care and rehabilitation.
Assistant Manager
Grace Lim specialises in the field of marketing and communications and was working in a publishing research organisation for over 4 years, where she helped with the marketing efforts for academic journals.
Her areas of expertise include a suite of marketing related fields such as conceptualising of marketing campaigns, content creation, content writing, social media management, digital marketing, and performance marketing. She is also managing the Communications efforts for Behavioural and Implementation Science Interventions (BISI) and Centre for Holistic initiatives for Learning & Development (CHILD), based in NUS.
Adjunct Senior Research Fellow
Dr Chervin Lam leads the Health Communication Team at ACRLE, exploring communication issues surrounding reproductive health information. Currently, there are many questions that are left unexplored in the literature. For example, where do women go to for reproductive health information? What obstacles do they face? How can we improve reproductive health education? Together with scholars from Shanghai Jiaotong University, Lam and his team are pioneering research in this novel and exciting intersection between social science and reproductive health.
Lam has published in several premier journals in the field, such as Health Communication and Journal of Health Communication. He is co-author of a book, Health Advocacy: A Communication Approach, which is read for a graduate class at Purdue University, USA.
Research Assistant
Ms. Shaili P Sashidharan graduated with a Bachelor of Sciences in Biomedicine (Hons). She is currently working as a research assistant under Dr Huang Zhongwei. Her mainstream projects are mostly fertility related, focusing more on the men’s health. She has 14 years of experience in the research field and has assisted on many other projects as well.
Research Assistant
Jovin is a research assistant under the Bia-Echo Asia Centre for Reproductive Longevity and Equality (ACRLE). She shows dedicated interest in the field of healthcare and is zealous to be part of the forefront in steering the development of women health. She is also earnest to pursue personal growth for her endeavours towards enriching the healthcare network. In her spare time, she loves to play with her pets.
Research Associate (Biostatistics)
Ms. Yang graduated with a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in Biostatistics from Oregon Health and Science University. She possesses extensive experience in analyzing clinical data from both retrospective and prospective studies. She joined ACRLE to further explore and contribute to the field of women’s reproductive health research.
Senior Research Fellow
Gong Min obtained her Bachelor of Clinical Medicine from Tongji Medical College, and her PhD from Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine – NUS. Gong Min’s research focuses on using multi-omics data analysis to investigate the emerging role of genetic alterations and epigenetic modulations associated with women’s and children’s health (e.g., preterm birth, gestational diabetes mellitus, and reproductive longevity). She is also co-leading multiple projects related to Paternal Origins of Health and Disease (POHaD) to unravel the underlaying mechanism of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.
Senior Research Fellow
Dr. Benny is a Senior Research Fellow at the National University Hospital, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She obtained her PhD from NUS and completed her postdoctoral training in the USA. Her research focus is on multi-omics strategies and translational clinical research for the enhancement of women’s health and reproductive longevity. She is also interested in promoting preconception health, developing novel biomarkers for PCOS as well as unraveling the unique (epi)genetics associated with Asian ethnicities. Dr. Benny has extensive experience in maternal-fetal medicine, big data integration, biomarker discovery and personalized medicine.
Research Assistant
Ms Lau graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Pharmacology-Biochemistry from the University of Leeds, UK and a MSc from the National University of Singapore. She joins Ovarian Biology and Senescence Study in ACRLE under Asst Prof Huang. She has experience in Reproductive Pharmacology & Sexual Medicine Lab. She is interested in therapeutics, pathophysiology, sexual function/dysfunction, and reproductive health.
Research Fellow
Dr. Vani Khare is a scientist and a humanitarian. She has joined ACRLE as a postdoctoral fellow, where her research focus is on female reproductive longevity, perimenopause, and menopause healthcare. She is also a staunch advocate for women’s reproductive and health care rights. Before joining ACRLE, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at A*STAR Singapore and held a senior scientist role in a pharma company. Additionally, she founded and led non-profit initiatives in India and Singapore, working to safeguard the rights of children and combat child sexual abuse.
Senior Research Fellow
Huili Guo graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2005 with a B.A. degree in Natural Sciences. In 2011, she received the Ph.D. degree in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She performed her thesis research in the laboratory of Prof. David Bartel at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, where she used ribosome profiling and RNA-Seq to study the molecular consequences of microRNA-mediated repression in mammalian systems. This work was published in Nature in 2010. This highly-cited piece of work is recommended by the Faculty of 1000, which identifies the most significant articles in biomedical research publications. Huili is a recipient of National Science Scholarships from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in 2002 (BS) and 2006 (PhD). She was an Adjunct Assistant Professor with the Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore. Huili was also an Ambassador for the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programme run by the Singapore Committee for UN Women. She is a recipient of the L’Oréal Singapore For Women In Science National Fellowship (2014) and the Young Scientist Award (2016). Huili was an Independent Fellow at IMCB from 2012-2021.
Assistant Manager
Eunice manages the wet laboratory in Bia-Echo Asia Centre of Reproductive Longevity and Equality (ACRLE), located in Centre of Life Science. She also works closely with the Deputy Director and Centre lead in administration and operations.
Senior Manager
Dione is the Research Centre Administration Lead at Bia-Echo Asia Centre for Reproductive Longevity and Equality (ACRLE). With more than 15 years of experience in the education sector, Dione Ng has held multiple administrative portfolios in NUS, SMU and MOE. Dione works closely with the Deputy Director in managing the Centre’s research grants, day-to-day corporate administration and operations.
Principle Investigator
Professor Dean Ho is currently Provost’s Chair Professor, Director of The Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM) at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Director of the N.1 Institute for Health (N.1), and Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the National University of Singapore.
Prof. Ho and collaborators successfully developed and validated CURATE.AI, a powerful digital medicine platform that has optimized human treatment for broad indications ranging from oncology to infectious diseases. He co-led the first inhuman clinical trials that have resulted in completely halted disease progression and durable patient responses that substantially outperformed standard of care approaches.
Principal Investigator
Prof Rong Li served as the Director of the Center for Cell Dynamics in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She has had over 25 years of independent research on cellular dynamics and mechanics employing interdisciplinary approaches. She was recruited to NUS in 2019 as the second Director of MechanobioIogy Institute (MBI).
Her research areas include Cellular dynamics and mechanics, cell and tissue aging and regeneration, and chromosomal biology in cellular adaptation. The diverse projects in Prof Rong Li’s lab contribute to two main research thrusts: cell and tissue aging; cellular and organismal adaptation. The study on aging focuses on understanding dynamic changes of crucial cellular components during the aging process and how these changes alter the mechanical functions of cells and tissues. The insights gained will be applied to the development of new methods for prolonging healthy aging and the repair and regeneration of deteriorated functions. The study of adaptation aims to understand the dynamics of genetic and epigenetic determinants of cells and tissues under acute or chronic stress which lead to adaptive behaviors ultimately beneficial or detrimental to the fitness of the organism. A potential application of the discoveries in this area is the prevention of cancer associated with chronic inflammatory diseases.
Principle Investigator
Prof. Zhang is a clinical epidemiologist and an expert in women’s health research. Prof. Zhang’s work unites biochemistry, genetics, nutrition, clinical medicine, and public health. It is at the interface of disease etiology and prevention strategies in women’s and children’s health over the lifespan and across generations. She is leading a multi-disciplinary program focusing on the improvement of women’s health through dietary and lifestyle modifications, omics research, and early screening in general.
Deputy Director
Zhongwei is a clinician-scientist and MOH accredited assisted reproductive techniques (ART) specialist who focuses on managing couples with fertility issues. He completed his PhD in 2011 under Associate Professor Dagan Wells at University of Oxford on effects of reproductive ageing via understanding the mechanisms of human oocyte aneuploidy and utilizing human cumulus cells as a non-invasive biomarker of oocyte quality.
Director
Prof Brian Kennedy is internationally recognised for his research in the basic biology of ageing and as a visionary committed to translating research discoveries into new ways of delaying, detecting, preventing and treating human ageing and associated diseases. He is the Director of the NUHS Centre for Healthy Longevity. He also serves as a Distinguished Professor in Biochemistry and Physiology Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at National University Singapore. The Centre seeks to demonstrate that ageing interventions can be successfully employed in humans to extend healthspan, the disease-free and highly functional period of life.
