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Fok Moon LUM
Lum_Fok_Moon@idlabs.a-star.edu.sgBiography
Fok-Moon Lum graduated from the Singapore National University of Singapore with a Degree in Biomedical Sciences. Following, he was awarded the President’s Graduate Fellowship from the National University of Singapore for his Ph.D., which he did at the Singapore Immunology Network in A*STAR with Professor Lisa Ng. He was instrumental in setting up the murine models of several clinically important arboviruses and using these models, he elucidated the host immune responses to chikungunya virus. Fok-Moon was also awarded the prestigious France-Singapore Merlion Fellowship during his Ph.D. allowing him to perform research in an overseas collaborator’s lab.
Upon completion of his Ph.D., he stayed on as a post-doctoral fellow and worked on the Zika virus, during the outbreak back in 2016-2017. Utilizing multiple immunological techniques, he managed to study the host immunity during active Zika virus infection and uncovered biomarkers associated with disease severity.
In 2019, he was awarded the A*STAR International Fellowship and spent 2 years at Stanford University training under the mentorship of Professor Lawrence Steinman, where he was working on understanding how neurotransmitters regulate neuroinflammation.
In 2023, he was awarded the NMRC Open-Fund Young Investigator Research Grant and the A*STAR Central Research Fund (UIBR), allowing him to progress as an independent Investigator at the A*STAR Infectious Diseases Labs (ID Labs). He currently leads the Pathogen Modulation Lab within the ID Labs.
Fok-Moon is also the current Head of the ID Labs Flow Platform, which is part of the larger A*STAR Flow Cytometry Cluster.
For more information on Flow Cytometry Services provided by the facility.
Lab Research Focus
The lab focuses on investigating the viral-neuro-immune dynamics of infectious diseases. Particularly, that of the neurotransmitters in modulating host immunity during infection with clinically important arboviruses. Over the years, neurotransmitters which are often associated with the central nervous system, are also reported to play a regulatory role in the host immune system. However, how neurotransmitters affect the progression of infectious diseases is relatively an underappreciated transdisciplinary research domain. Thus, investigating this intriguing relationship between neurotransmitters and host immunity should be further exploited, allowing for the identification of potential novel host-directed immunotherapeutic targets. Furthermore, critical insights on how aberrant levels of neurotransmitters (which can occur during neurological disorders) can potentially interfere with the progression and severity of arboviral infections can be obtained. This will have significant long-term clinical implications in improving patients’ health and providing better value-based healthcare.
Lum Fok Moon's full publication list
Lab Members
| Postdocs (PhD) | Research Officers | PhD/Undergraduate Students |
| Suhaimi AHMAD | Isaac KAM | |
| Brenda AW |
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