Wenn Chyau LEE

Biography

Wenn-Chyau Lee received his BSc (Hons) degree in Biomedical Sciences from University of Malaya, Malaysia in year 2011, and graduated with his PhD in Medical Sciences from University of Malaya in year 2014. Subsequently, he joined Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN, A*STAR) as a research fellow in Laurent Renia’s Laboratory. He was appointed as SIgN fellow after receiving OF-YIRG grant awarded by the National Medical Research Council (NMRC) of Singapore in year 2018. He joined the newly formed A*STAR ID Labs as an investigator in year 2021. Subsequently, he joined the Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya as a senior lecturer. 
As a parasitologist, he has involved in studies encompassing a number of medically important parasites such as the malaria causative agent Plasmodium spp., Toxoplasma gondii that can cause birth defects, Brugia pahangi that can cause symptomatic zoonotic filariasis, as well as several medically important vectors. His main research interest revolves around the immuno-pathobiology of malaria. He has been investigating and deciphering the roles of rosetting (a phenomenon where a Plasmodium-infected red blood cell is stably adhered to uninfected red blood cells, forming a flower-like structure called ‘rosette’) in the pathogenesis of malaria. He has worked as a research fieldworker in different places including the Thai-Burmese Border, China, peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo. As different laboratory settings are equipped differently, he enjoys adapting and improvising facilities available in the field sites to conduct experiments. Currently, he is also the facility coordinator of the insectary and arthropod containment level 2 (ACL2) research unit in the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya. 
To date, he has published (as first/ corresponding author) in a number of reputable journals such as Blood, EBioMedicine, eLife, Frontiers in Immunology, and Frontiers in Microbiology. Besides becoming reviewer for many scientific journals and grant evaluation committees, he is also an editorial board member of Frontiers in Microbiology.

Research Focus

• Malaria Pathobiology
• Zoonotic Parasites
• Vector Biology

Publications

• Lee WC, Chin PW, Lau YL, Chin LC, Fong MY, Yap CJ, Supramaniam RR, Mahmud R: Hyperparasitaemic human Plasmodium knowlesi infection with atypical morphology in peninsular Malaysia. Malar J. 12. 88 (2013)
• Lee WC, Russell B, Lau YL, Fong MY, Chu C, Sriprawat K, Suwanarusk R, Nosten F, Renia L: Giemsa-stained wet mount based method for reticulocyte quantification: a viable alternative in resource limited or malaria endemic settings. PLoS One. 8. e60303 (2013)
• LauYL#, LeeWC#, Tan LH, Kamarulzaman A, Syed Omar SF, Fong MY, Cheong FW, Mahmud R: Acute respiratory distress syndrome and acute renal failure from Plasmodium ovale infection with fatal outcome. Malar J. 12. 389 (2013)
• Braima KA, Sum JS, Ghazali AR, Muslimin M, Jeffery J, Lee WC, Shaker MR, Elamin AE, Jamaiah I, Lau YL, Rohela M, Kamarulzaman A, Sitam F, Mohd-Noh R, Abdul-Aziz NM: Is there a risk of suburban transmission of malaria in Selangor, Malaysia? PLoS One. 8. e77924 (2013)
• Lee WC, Malleret B, Lau YL, Mauduit M, Fong MY, Cho JS, Suwanarusk R, Zhang R, Albrecht L, Costa FT, Preiser P, McGready R, Renia L, Nosten F, Russell B: Glycophorin C (CD236R) mediates vivax malaria parasite rosetting to normocytes. Blood. 123. e100-9 (2014)
• Sum JS, Lee WC, Amir A, Braima KA, Jeffery J, Abdul-Aziz NM, Fong MY, LauYL: Phylogenetic study of six species of Anopheles mosquitoes in Peninsular Malaysia based on inter-transcribed spacer region 2 (ITS2) of ribosomal DNA. Parasit Vectors. 7. 309 (2014)
• Zhang R, LeeWC, Malleret B, Suwanarusk R, Dao M, Chu C, Lim CT, Renia L, Nosten F, Russell B: Therapeutic disruption of Plasmodium vivax infected red cell deformability. Malar J. 13 (Suppl 1): O25 (2014)
• Lau YL#, Lee WC#, Xia J, Zhang G, Razali R, Anwar A, Fong MY: Draft genome of Brugia pahangi: high similarity between B. pahangi and B. malayi. Parasit Vectors. 8. 451 (2015)
• Lee WC, Malleret B, Lau YL, Mauduit M, Fong MY, Cho JS, Suwanarusk R, Zhang R, Albrecht L, Costa FT, Preiser P, McGready R, Renia L, Nosten F, Russell B: Erratum for: [Glycophorin C (CD236R) mediates vivax malaria parasite rosetting to normocytes]. Blood. 126. 2765 (2015)
• LauYL#, Lee WC#, Chen J, Zhong Z, Jian J, Amir A, Cheong FW, SumJS, Fong MY: Draft genomes of Anopheles cracens and Anopheles maculatus: comparison of simian malaria and human malaria vectors in Peninsular Malaysia. PLoS One. 11. e0157893 (2016)
• Lau YL#, Lee WC#, Gudimella R, Zhang G, Ching XT, Razali R, Aziz F, Anwar A, Fong MY: Deciphering the draft genome of Toxoplasma gondii RH strain. PLoS One. 11. e0157901 (2016)
• Zhang R#, LeeWC#, LauYL, Albrecht L, Lopes SC, Costa FT, Suwanarusk R, Nosten F, Cooke BM, Renia L, Russell B: Rheopathologic consequence of Plasmodium vivax rosette formation. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 10. e0004912 (2016)
• Van Enter BJD, Lau YL, Ling CL, Watthanaworawit W, Sukthana Y, Lee WC, Nosten F, McGready R: Seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii infection in refugee and migrant pregnant women along the Thailand-Myanmar Border. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 97. 232-235 (2017)
• Lee WC, Russell B, Renia L: Sticking for a cause: the falciparum malaria parasite cytoadherence. Front Immunol. 10: 1444 (2019)
• Lee WC, Russell B, Sobota RM, Ghaffar K, Howland SW, Wong ZX, Maier AG, Dorin-Semblat D, Biswas S, Gamain B, Lau YL, Malleret B, Chu C, Nosten F, Renia L: Plasmodium-infected erythrocytes induce secretion of IGFBP7 to form type II rosettes and escape phagocytosis. eLife 9: e51546 (2020)
• Lee WC*, Renia L: Microscopy-based methods for rosetting assay in malaria research. Bio Protoc 10: e3665 (2020)
• Lee WC*, Russell B, Lee B, Chu C, Phyo AP, Sriprawat K, Lau YL, Nosten F, Renia L: Plasmodium falciparum rosetting protects schizonts against artemisinin. EBioMedicine 73: 103680 (2021)
• Lee WC*, Shahari S, Nguee SYT, Lau YL, Renia L: Cytoadherence properties of Plasmodium knowlesi-infected erythrocytes. Front Microbiol 12: 804417 (2022)
• Lee WC*, Russell B, Lau YL, Nosten F, Renia L: Rosetting responses of Plasmodium-infected erythrocytes to anti-malarials. Am J Trop Med Hyg106: 1670 (2022)
• Lee WC, Cheong FW, Amir A, Lai MY, Tan JH, Phang WK, Shahari S, Lau YL: Plasmodium knowlesi: the game changer for malaria eradication. Malar J 21: 140