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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Neerja KARNANI, PhD
Senior Principal Investigator
KOH Woon Puay, MBBS, PhD, FAMS
Senior Principal Investigator
Kristy LEE, PhD
Scientist
Melvin LEOW, MBBS, MMed, FAMS, FACE, FACP, FRCP (Edin), FRCPath, PhD
Senior Principal Investigator
Chen Luxi, Senior Scientist I
Chen Luxi is a Senior Scientist with the Social Sciences department under A*STAR IHDP's Human Development domain. She was previously a research fellow with the National University of Singapore.
Her research interests lie in developmental psychology and applied psychology, with a focus on child development, self-regulation, family processes, stress mindset and coping, and mental health. Notable projects she has been involved in include the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG-LEADS) where she the study team investigated how child-, parent-, family-, school-, and community-level factors contribute to children's development across multiple domains (cognitive, socioemotional, behavioural, academic, physical, and mental health), as well as maternal wellness and family functioning in Singapore; the Modelling and Optimising Homecare and Caregiving Services for the Elderly (HOCAMOSE) project that is focused on improving the efficiency and quality of homecare and caregiving services for the elderly through data-driven modeling and optimisation, with the goal of enhancing older adults' physical and psychological well-being; and the Role-play Intervention Programme to Improve Theory-of-Mind among Preschoolers in Singapore, which developed and implemented a role-play intervention aimed at enhancing preschoolers' theory-of-mind development, while examining the role of executive functions and teacher coaching in fostering children's social-emotional understanding.
Chen obtained her BSc in Psychology from the Beijing Normal University her Master of Counselling from Monash University, and her PhD in Psychology from the Nanyang Technological University.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Chen Xuejiao, Senior Scientist I
Chen Xuejiao is a Senior Scientist with the Social Sciences department under A*STAR IHDP's Human Development domain. She was previously a research fellow with the National University of Singapore.
Her research interests focus on early childhood development and family well-being. She employs quantitative methods such as structural equation modeling, fixed effects modeling, and propensity score analysis to evaluate how environmental factors like family background, food insecurity, and COVID-19, affect young children’s test scores, behaviour problems, and physical health.
Chen has been involved in the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG-LEADS) since its first wave. The study collects data from 5,005 Singaporean children aged six and below at baseline, and follows the same children over time. She has contributed to the sample design, questionnaire design, survey operation, and the construction of sampling weights and norms for test scores.
She received her PhD from the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
- COVID-19 Experiences and Family Resilience: A Latent Class Analysis.
Journal of Family and Marriage. 3 September 2024. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.13031.
Molly Grant, Scientist
Molly Grant is a Scientist with A*STAR IHDP's Human Development domain. She was previously a Research Fellow for the Roy McKenzie Centre for the Study of Families and Children at the Victoria University of Wellington.
Her research interests lie in child and adolescent development, family life, social and economic factors, and longitudinal research. Her doctoral research used a life course framework to examine social and economic circumstances across childhood and children’s health and development. The use of longitudinal analytic techniques in this research meant the duration and timing of childhood experiences could be considered together, giving direction for policy interventions and family support strategies.
Grant has prior working experience in the School of Population Health at the University of Auckland as part of the research team at the Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) birth cohort study. GUiNZ is the largest contemporary study of child development in New Zealand and follows the lives of more than 6,000 children and their families longitudinally.
Much of her research to date has focused on material hardship – a key indicator of poverty. She has also worked as a Research Fellow for the Roy McKenzie Centre for the Study of Families and Children at the Victoria University of Wellington, identifying key interventions that target the reduction of material hardship in the short- to medium-term.
Grant obtained both her Master and PhD in Education from the University of Auckland.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Lu Shuya, Scientist
Lu Shuya is a Scientist with the Social Sciences department under A*STAR IHDP's Human Development domain. She was previously a research fellow with the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.
Her research interests focus on family, migration and child development. Lu has been involved in the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG-LEADS). Collecting data from 5,005 Singaporean children aged six and below at baseline and following the same children over time, the study investigates how child-, parent-, family-, school-, and community-level factors contribute to children's development across multiple domains (cognitive, socioemotional, behavioural, academic, physical, and mental health), as well as maternal wellness and family functioning in Singapore.
Lu obtained her BA in Sociology, Education and MA in Social Sciences from the University of California, Irvine; and her PhD in Sociology from the National University of Singapore.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
- The Rise in Cross-national Marriages and the Emergent Inequalities in East and Southeast Asia.
Sociology Compass. 13 May 2024. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.13219.
- Family Dynamics in Cross-national Families with Young Children in Singapore.
Journal of Family Issue. Volume 45, Issue 5. First published online February 10, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X23115667.
Kristy Lee, Scientist
Kristy Lee is a Scientist with the Social Sciences department under A*STAR IHDP's Human Development domain. Prior to joining A*STAR, Lee completed her postdoctoral training as a research fellow at the Centre for Holistic Initiatives for Learning and Development (CHILD) and thereafter as a research fellow with the Human Potential Translational Research Programme at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.
Lee’s research interests lie in child development, sociomoral cognition, and social inequalities. During graduate school, she led several experimental studies on early prosociality, including investigations into preschool children’s norm enforcement, helping, and resource distribution, as well as observational studies on early-emerging racial biases. Lee is presently part of the research team for the Singapore Longitudinal EArly Development Study (SG LEADS) led by Professor Jean Yeung. Her current research focuses on the longitudinal impact of non-parental care on children’s achievement and socioemotional adjustment.
Lee obtained her Bachelor of Social Sciences (Hons) in Psychology from the National University of Singapore, and her PhD in Developmental Psychology from Nanyang Technological University.
PUBLICATIONS
Li Nanxun, Scientist
Li Nanxun is a Scientist with the Social Sciences department under A*STAR IHDP's Human Development domain. Prior to joining A*STAR, Li was a research fellow at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.
Li’s research interests lie in family sociology, social policy, fatherhood, parenting, and child development. Li is part of the research team for the Singapore Longitudinal EArly Development Study (SG LEADS) and she was involved in the Study on Family Status Discrimination in the Workplace in Hong Kong.
She was presented the second prize for Best Student Paper Award by the Population Association of Singapore in 2023, and received a research scholarship from the Centre for Family and Population Research at NUS from 2019 to 2023.
Li obtained her BA in Bilingual Interdisciplinary Chinese Studies from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, her MA in Social Policy from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and her PhD in Sociology from the National University of Singapore.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
- Business Structures, Stereotypes and Knowledge of Discrimination: Understanding Employers’ Support to Paid Family Leave in Hong Kong.
Social Policy and Society, 1-16. 24 March 2022.
Wong Chun Hong, Scientist
Wong Chun Hong is a Scientist with A*STAR IHDP's Human Development domain. He was previously a research fellow at the National University of Singapore's Global Asia Institute, working on shelf-life extension of tropical fruits in the Southeast Asia region.
His research interests now lie in micronutrient supplementation for pregnancy in high-income countries, specifically on how supplementation at different stages of pregnancy can help mitigate the risks of adverse maternal and infant outcomes. Wong was one of the reviewers for a systematic review and meta-analysis on looking at maternal dietary patterns in relation to birth outcomes.
Wong obtained both his BSc and PhD in Food, Science and Technology, from the National University of Singapore.
Find out more about him here.
PUBLICATIONS
- Comparison of two strategies enhancing the antagonistic effect of lactic acid bacteria in edible coating against Listeria monocytogenes on fresh-cut apple slices.
LWT. 2023. June (182): 114923. 28 May 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lwt.2023.114923.
- Bilayer edible coating with stabilized Lactobacillus plantarum 299v improved the shelf life and safety quality of fresh-cut apple slices.
Food Packaging and Shelf Life. 20 August 2021. Dec (30): 1000746. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fpsl.2021.100746.
David Cameron-Smith, Senior Principal Investigator
David Cameron-Smith is a senior principal investigator at A*STAR IHDP and he leads research on dietary protein and lipid metabolism at CNRC. He earned his professorship at The University of Auckland where he was the Chair in Nutrition at the Liggins Institute.
As the author of over 230 peer-reviewed publications in the areas of nutritional clinical interventions (with complementary analysis of health impacts in areas of obesity, diabetes and ageing, using advanced analytics including lipidomics, metabolomics and transcriptomics), his research work aims to decipher how nutrition regulates genes and the biochemical pathways that are essential for optimal human health. He has led significant clinical trials that have shed light on the role of protein in the diet of the elderly, the differences in metabolic response to differing proteins, and the differences between intolerances to dairy, as compared to lactose intolerance.
At A*STAR IHDP, Cameron-Smith’s research group is focused on building the scientific evidence for Future Foods, a part A*STAR funding and expansion of the Singapore Food Story. This is a research strategy to extend Singapore’s capabilities in advanced biotech-based food manufacturing, with the aim of providing clinically validated food solutions that improve health in the face of challenges such as rising metabolic disease and an ageing population.
He received his PhD in nutritional biochemistry from the Deakin University in Australia. Following postdoctoral training at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, he returned to an academic appointment at the School of Health Sciences in Deakin University.
Find out more about him here.
PUBLICATIONS
Neerja Karnani, Senior Principal Investigator
In addition to her role at A*STAR IHDP, Neerja Karnani is also the Head of Clinical Data Engagement at A*STAR's Bioinformatics Institute. Her postdoctoral work at the University of Virginia, in association with the ENCODE consortium (NHGRI) involved understanding the epigenetic landscape and instability in human genome.
Her research work is focused on identifying diagnostic markers and interventions related to women and child health adversities. She uses multi-omics approaches (genetics, epigenetics, transcriptomics, metagenomics and lipidomics) and integrates big data to develop better molecular insights into metabolic diseases, micronutrient deficiencies, and mental health adversities.
Besides helming the systems biology and biomarker research group at SICS, Karnani is also an executive committee member of the GUSTO and S-PRESTO birth cohorts, a part of the science management group for EpiGen consortium – a collaboration between Singapore, New Zealand and the U.K. – and a key member and contributor of Singapore’s National Precision Medicine programme that aims to study human genetic variation for population stratified risk prediction of health adversities. Her group’s research findings have attracted major nutrition, pharma and diagnostic industries and fostered translational programmes.
Karnani received her PhD from the School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University in India, where she worked on multidrug resistance in pathogenic yeast. During her graduate studies, she was a recipient of the C. R. Krishna Murti Memorial Young Scientist Award.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Koh Woon Puay, Senior Principal Investigator
A senior principal investigator with A*STAR IHDP, Professor Koh Woon Puay is also Assistant Dean for Faculty Development at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, lead investigator for the Healthy Longevity Translational Research Programme at NUS Medicine, and Director of the Clinician-Scientist Development Unit at NUS Medicine.
Being a population health scientist, her research interest and expertise is in unravelling the epidemiology of chronic diseases of importance to Singapore and the world at large, such as cancer, cardio-metabolic, musculoskeletal and neurodegenerative diseases. Being medically qualified in Singapore, and having had PhD training in experimental research and postdoctoral training in epidemiology, she seeks to integrate biology, medicine and epidemiology in etiological studies of the aforementioned chronic diseases.
Koh’s research incorporates her knowledge in clinical medicine and training in laboratory science with epidemiologic methods to unravel putative mechanistic pathways in disease etiology. Beyond establishing associations between exposures and risk of disease, her research uses molecular and genetic tools to identify modifiable factors (such as lifestyle factors) that could be applicable to disease prevention, or biomarkers (including but not limited to genetic markers) that could be developed for early detection or screening of disease. In addition to bringing benefit to the scientific community, she also aims to translate her research into public health outcomes by providing evidence for the foundation of public health education and policy in Singapore.
Since 2003, Koh has been the principal investigator of The Singapore Chinese Health Study. Together with local and overseas co-investigators, she has examined lifestyle and dietary factors associated with chronic diseases common among Singaporeans using this cohort, and has co-authored about 400 scientific papers in peer-reviewed international journals, including several noteworthy and novel scientific contributions of reports on dietary, genetic and lifestyle factors that are of importance to Asian populations. The Singapore Chinese Health Study is an example of world-class epidemiologic research that integrates rigorous prospective study design with cutting-edge biochemical measures that provide better information for causal inference. The study represents a unique constellation of strengths highlighting the importance of Singapore as a hub for biomedical research: a well-defined motivated study population leading to low non-response and nearly complete follow-up, strong expertise in epidemiology and biochemical measurements, and an Asian setting that importantly complements studies conducted in western countries.
For her groundbreaking research efforts, the Ministry of Health, Singapore awarded her the NMRC Clinician Scientist Award (Senior Investigator Category) for the years 2014 to 2019 and 2020 to 2025. In 2016, she received the Duke-NUS Medical School Dean’s Excellence Award 2016 for outstanding accomplishment in research.
Koh obtained her MBBS from the National University of Singapore and her PhD in Immunology from The University of Sydney.
PUBLICATIONS
Melvin Leow, Senior Principal Investigator
Melvin Leow is a senior principal investigator at A*STAR IHDP; the Director of the Clinical Nutrition Research Centre (CNRC), which is part of A*STAR's Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation (SIFBI); a professor at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine; an adjunct professor at Duke-NUS Medical School; and a senior consultant endocrinologist affiliated to the Department of Endocrinology at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
Leow's scientific work focuses on energy metabolism and metabolic physiology, in particular understanding the control over energy balance, neuroendocrine function and metabolism that is exerted through the critical centres of the brain and feedback loops involving the intricate network of the gastrointestinal tract, pancreas, adipose tissue, liver and skeletal muscles.
His research interests include looking into the metabolic effects of the thyroid hormone, brown adipose tissue and browning of white fat, mathematical modelling of endocrine physiology, functional foods and nutraceuticals as interventions for obesity, diabetes, ageing and cancer. Notably, he has done significant research on brown adipose tissue, thermogenesis and the browning of white adipocytes with nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals and endogenous peptides and hormones.
Leow received his MBBS and MMed from the National University of Singapore, and obtained his PhD from the Nanyang Technological University.
Find out more about him here.
PUBLICATIONS
Evelyn Loo, Principal Scientist II
In addition to her role at A*STAR IHDP, Evelyn Loo is also an adjunct assistant professor at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine’s Department of Paediatrics.
Her research interests include examining environmental influences during the early years of one’s life – such as nutrition, microbiome and exogenous stressors – that affect epigenetic plasticity and immunological maturation during development. Loo’s work revolves around the study of epidemiology of a child’s health as well as identifying critical periods where environmental microbiome can exert the most influence, identifying factors that can affect environmental microbiome, and understanding the interactions between environmental microbiome and allergens, with outcomes on the skin microbiome and the subsequent development of non-communicable diseases. She hopes that her research will be useful in the implementation of strategies to prevent childhood diseases.
Loo was awarded the Open Fund – Young Individual Research Grant by the National Medical Research Council to lead a project that looked into identifying the effects of household environmental microbiome in early life on development of allergic diseases in children.
Before joining SICS, Loo was a postdoctoral fellow at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine’s Department of Paediatrics where she studied the epidemiology of allergic diseases in children. She now continues her research in the field of developmental origins of health and disease at SICS with the GUSTO and S-PRESTO birth cohort studies.
She obtained her PhD in biomedical sciences from the National University of Singapore through the NUS research scholarship.
PUBLICATIONS
Jeroen Schmitt, Senior Principal Scientist III
Prior to joining SIFBI, Schmitt worked at Nestlé Research in Switzerland for over 16 years where he held various executive leadership positions, including Head of Brain Health Research, Global Head of Clinical Operations, Head of Brain Health Innovation, and Global Head of Clinical Research. In these roles, he was responsible for fundamental and applied research for health benefits at all stages in life. During his affiliation at Nestlé, Schmitt held a nine-year adjunct professorship of human psychopharmacology at Swinburne University (Australia) in Brain Research.
Additionally, Schmitt has received advanced management and business trainings, and has worked extensively in the interface of science and business applications. He believes that true innovations in nutrition and health flow from a creative and pragmatic mindset, clever applications of innovative yet robust methodologies, interdisciplinary collaborations, and a strong scientific integrity.
Schmitt obtained both his Master in Biological Health Sciences and PhD in Cognitive Psychopharmacology from Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Find out more about him here.
PUBLICATIONS
Lucas Shen, Senior Scientist I
Lucas Shen’s research at A*STAR IHDP involves leading data-intensive quantitative research on the interactions between the family environment (e.g. paternal vs maternal factors) and the broader environment (neighbourhood social, urban, and built environment) on early childhood development (physical, social, and mental well-being).
His key projects harmonise and link geospatiotemporal data with cohort studies before applying causal inference and quasi-experimental design, and his research also applies novel unstructured big data and machine learning to answer policy-relevant questions in socio-economic behaviour and political economy. He advocates reproducible science and contributes to open scientific software.
He obtained his BSc in Economics & Management from the University of London International Programmes (First Class Honours), and MSc and PhD (Economics) from Nanyang Technological University.
Find out more about him here.
PUBLICATIONS
S. Sendhil Velan, Senior Principal Scientist II
Besides his role at A*STAR IHDP, S. Sendhil Velan also serves as an adjunct associate professor at the National University of Singapore. Additionally, he is the co-president of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (Chapter of Singapore).
He specialises in magnetic resonance imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy of metabolic diseases, multi-parametric and multi-modal imaging of body fat partitioning during obesity, weight loss imaging methods implementation, and development for characterising metabolism in paediatric, adults and the ageing population. During his time with SICS, Velan has developed MR imaging and spectroscopy R&D programmes for characterising metabolism for the GUSTO, SAMS and S-PRESTO studies, quantitative imaging of body fat (white, brown, and beige) in rodents and humans, and developed advanced MR-PET/ MRS techniques for characterising metabolism.
Velan obtained his Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, Master of Philosophy and PhD in Biophysics from the University of Madras, and did his post-doctoral fellowship in magnetic resonance methodologies at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Find out more about him here.
PUBLICATIONS
Jadegoud Yaligar, Principal Scientist I
Before joining A*STAR IHDP's Human Development domain, Jadegoud (Jadesh) Yaligar was with A*STAR's Singapore Bioimaging Consortium (SBIC) and Institute of Bioengineering and Bioimaging (IBB).
His research interest is focused on metabolic and functional imaging of diabetes, obesity and cancer in animal models. Projects he has worked on include imaging pancreas, liver and muscle mitochondrial function in obese and diabetic animal models, and clinical metabolic studies focused on understanding the whole body fat metabolism in response to weight loss interventions. He has also worked on nutritional and metabolic imaging of food function and structure evaluating the different diets (Asian/Western) for understanding the body fat partitioning and metabolism.
Additionally, he specialises in metabolomics of intact/biopsy tissue samples and body fluids by 1H, 13C, 31P high resolution magic angle spinning (HRMAS) spectroscopy and high resolution NMR. He coordinated the IBB food research programme focused on nutritional metabolism and body composition imaging.
Yaligar obtained his PhD from Gulbarga University in India. After his PhD, he moved to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the U.S. to conduct postdoctoral research on metabolic imaging of hypoxia/lactate in prostate and breast cancer models.
Find out more about him here.
PUBLICATIONS
Jean Yeung, Director (Social Sciences)
Jean Yeung is Director of Social Sciences under the Human Development domain at A*STAR IHDP. Previously a Provost-Chair Professor at the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Sociology Department and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, she was the inaugural President of the Population Association of Singapore and the Founding Director of the Centre for Family and Population Research at NUS.
Yeung's research focuses on various aspects of family and population transitions in Asia including ageing, marriage, family values, and child development. She has led national studies on family and children’s well-being in the U.S., China, and Singapore, been on the editorial boards of several top-ranking international journals, and on numerous scientific review committees and advisory boards. She is the principal investigator for the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG LEADS), which examines human development in Singapore by using innovative methods to understand factors that can promote Singaporean children’s early childhood development, and provide input that can help address these factors.
Her current research includes various family demographic issues in Asia and America. Her work appears in leading journals and is cited widely in academic publications and high-impact media such as BBC News and The Economist. Her recent publications include changing family values and behaviour, children's well-being, human capital, and ageing.
Yeung obtained her MA in Sociology from the Illinois State University, and her PhD in Sociology from the University of Alberta.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Narasimhan Kothandaraman, Senior Scientist I
Currently a scientist with A*STAR IHDP, Narasimhan Kothandaraman previously held similar positions with King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia, Cleveland Clinic in the U.S., and University of Western Cape in South Africa.
Specialising in biomarker discovery through integration of OMICS in genetic epidemiology for large cohort studies, machine learning, data and text mining, and network biology, Kothandaraman’s research interests at SICS include genetic association studies based on GUSTO cohorts using metabolomics and lipidomics approaches to associate offspring and maternal outcomes.
Significant projects he has worked on include using metabolites and lipids as biomarkers for pregnancy and birth outcomes in the GUSTO cohort across different ethnicities in Singapore; prediction of metabolic signatures for gestational diabetes and preterm birth-associated metabolic changes in placenta, body fluids using mass spectrometry (MS)-based targeted and untargeted techniques, as well as subsequent development of multivariate models to associate lipids with birth and pregnancy outcomes; and ongitudinal analysis of child growth and development using metabolomics and lipidomics data.
Kothandaraman received his PhD from the Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore for his work on metabolomics of phenylpropanoid mutants in 2003. Subsequently, he worked as a research fellow at the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department at the National University Health System in the field of biomarker discovery for prenatal diagnosis and gynaecological malignancies using MS platforms. He joined the Systems Biology and Biomarker Discovery group at SICS in 2017.
Find out more about him here.
PUBLICATIONS
Keri McCrickerd, Principal Scientist I
In addition to her role with A*STAR IHDP, Keri McCrickerd is also an Assistant Professor with the Department of Paediatrics, NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, and an Adjunct at the Centre for Holistic Initiatives in Learning and Development (CHILD) at NUS.
A research psychologist specialising in eating behaviour and a chartered psychologist with the British Psychological Society, McCrickerd’s work focuses on defining the cognitive and sensory factors influencing appetite regulation and understanding the early drivers of eating behaviour. Her research combines behavioural studies with insights gained from the GUSTO birth cohort and partnerships with local schools. Through her scientific work, she aims to understand why we eat the way we do and develop strategies to promote health and well-being through regulation of appetite and food intake.
Since joining A*STAR IHDP in 2015, she has achieved several awards, including the New Investigator Travel Award by the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behaviour in 2017, the first runner-up for the Drummond Early Career Nutrition Scientist Award by the British Nutrition Foundation in 2018, the Rising Star Award by the Asia Oceania Association for the Study of Obesity in 2019, and the A*STAR Career Development Award Grant for her project ‘Testing a bio-behavioural toolbox to promote eating self-regulation in preschool children’ in 2020.
McCrickerd obtained her BSc in Experimental Psychology from the University of Bristol and her PhD in Psychology from the University of Sussex.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Navin Michael, Principal Scientist I
Michael’s research interests lie in growth and metabolism, developmental origins of cardiometabolic and cardiorenal disease, imaging intrahepatic and intramyocellular lipids, kidney functional imaging, gestational diabetes and progression to type 2 diabetes. Key projects he has worked on include investigating links between poor foetal growth and poor foetoplacental blood flow with kidney function; childhood growth trajectories, their predictors and links to cardiometabolic outcomes; and determinants of intramyocellular accumulation in early childhood in Asian children.
He received the second prize for Best Oral Presentation at the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) Paediatric Study Group Meeting in 2016, the Magna Cum Laude Award from ISMRM in 2015, and the Merlion PhD Scholarship (2007 to 2011) from the Embassy of France.
Michael obtained his Bachelor of Technology, Information and Communication Technology from Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology in India, and his PhD from the School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
PUBLICATIONS
Suresh Anand Sadananthan, Senior Scientist II
Having been with A*STAR IHDP since 2010, Suresh Anand Sadananthan is a scientist with the institute’s Metabolic Imaging group under the Human Development programme.
Through his research, he aims to better understand body fat partitioning and its relationship with metabolic health in adults and children. He is involved in the development and application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy-based biomarkers for non-invasive investigation of fat distribution in the abdomen and other ectopic sites, and development of image analysis techniques based on deep learning for the segmentation of MR images.
Actively involved in GUSTO and S-PRESTO studies that focus on the investigation of maternal and early life determinants of childhood obesity and metabolic disorders, Sadananthan hopes to expand the investigation of body fat partitioning in the developmental cohorts at A*STAR IHDP to include assessment of cardiac fat, structure, and function by MRI and look at the early life risk factors for future cardiovascular and metabolic health. He’s also interested in understanding the pathogenesis of gestational diabetes mellitus and its progression to type 2 diabetes mellitus post-delivery,
He obtained his Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Madras, his Masters of technology from the University of Mysore, and his PhD in Computer Engineering from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Find out more about him here.
PUBLICATIONS
Mya Thway Tint, Principal Scientist I
Besides her role at A*STAR IHDP, Mya Thway Tint is also a senior research fellow in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.
Her area of expertise is in body composition using advanced criterion methods such as air displacement plethysmography, magnetic resonance imaging, and quantitative magnetic resonance imaging. Her research focuses on developmental influences of offspring’s metabolic risk and bone health in reproductive-age women and children. She is involved in the GUSTO, S-PRESTO and NiPPeR studies.
Tint obtained her MBBS from the Institute of Medicine (1) in Myanmar, and her Master of Science and PhD from the National University of Singapore.
PUBLICATIONS
Candida Vaz, Senior Scientist II
Candida Vaz has been with A*STAR IHDP since 2018. Prior to joining the institute, Vaz was with A*STAR’s Bioinformatics Institute for almost seven years where she was involved in projects primarily related to next generation sequencing data analysis.
She has brought her wealth of experience in data analysis to her research at A*STAR IHDP where she specialises in RNA-Seq and Small RNA Sequencing data analysis. Her work comprises expression profiling and functional analysis of genes and small non-coding RNAs (miRNA, tRFs and piRNAs) significantly changing due to a treatment/condition.
Her most significant research projects/studies to date include the ‘Role of Sperm SncRNAs (miRNA, tRFs and piRNAs) in mediating Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance’, the ‘Role of SncRNAs in Gestational Diabetes’, and the ‘Study of Maternal Anxiety and Mood Disorder Transcriptomics’.
She holds a MSc in biotechnology from Mohanlal Sukhadia University – Udaipur, and a PhD in bioinformatics and biotechnology from Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Alina Rodriguez, Senior Principal Scientist III
An active multidisciplinary scientist and educator for over two decades, Rodriguez embeds evidence-base into teaching at all university levels, supervising students to PhD completion, and mentoring post-docs. Spanning four countries, her research includes maternal and child health, mental health, neurodevelopment, and obesity. She is one of the leads for the Integrative Adolescence Research Programme (IARP) at A*STAR IHDP, which was developed to identify causal risk factors impacting adolescent mental health and to investigate the interplay between mental and physical health. The ultimate goal is to design and implement targeted prevention and intervention programmes.
Rodriguez earned her PhD from Uppsala University Sweden in psychology. She then trained extensively in public health and epidemiology at Imperial College London as a recipient of the prestigious fellowship from the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems. Her unique background enables her to carry out international level research in pregnancy and life course development, disease risk from a socio-behavioural perspective, and contribute to the understanding of the crossover between mental and physical health.
Besides receiving the Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation for Promising Young Women in Research, Rodriguez is also a chartered member of the British Psychological Society, including the Division of Neuropsychology, Division of Academics, Researchers & Teachers in Psychology, Division of Clinical Psychology and the Faculty for Children, Young People and their Families; and currently serves on the Scientific and Medical Advisory Committee of Unlocking ADHD in Singapore.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Zhang Han, Senior Scientist I
Zhang Han's scientific work focuses on the human brain and behaviour development, particularly in the influences of brain and behaviour development in children and adolescents, and the psychobiological resilience of individuals.
Her professional expertise includes statistical data analysis, data analytics, programming, cognitive neuroscience, and MRI, while her research interests lie in the individual difference of brain networks in a developmental perspective; transgenerational transmission of maternal adversity; and neurocognitive development study with large-scale big data.
Zhang obtained her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Qufu Normal University, and her PhD in Developmental and Educational Psychology from the Beijing Normal University.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Karen Tan, Principal Scientist II
In addition to her role at A*STAR IHDP, Karen Tan is also a consultant at the National University Hospital’s Department of Laboratory Medicine with a sub-specialty in molecular diagnosis.
Her research interests lie in blood biomarkers in clinical research on human potential and molecular diagnostics. Some of the key projects she has been involved in include ‘Tryptophan metabolites association with adiposity in infants and children’, ‘Clinical lipids in children and association with cardiovascular risk factors’, and ‘Cord blood adipokines and neonatal adiposity’.
Tan obtained her Bachelor of Science and MBBS from the National University of Singapore, and her PhD from the University of Cambridge.
PUBLICATIONS
Anna Fogel, Senior Scientist II
With a keen interest in behavioural and psychosocial factors pertaining to (un)healthy growth in childhood, Anna Fogel's research is largely focused on individual differences in behavioural susceptibility to obesity in the first years of life – particularly the role of intrinsic and environmental influences on children’s appetite and their expression in the four aspects of eating behaviour (What, How, How much and When children eat). Involved in GUSTO, she’s been investigating modifiable eating behaviours that promote increased energy intakes and obesity in children, with particular focus on oral processing characteristics, portion size preferences, snacking patterns and general dietary habits.
Skilled in project design and management, data analysis and various types of data presentation, her work revolves around childhood feeding and eating behaviours, and family-level behaviour change programmes that improve physical and mental health.
In 2017, she received the Conference travel award from Asia Oceania Association for the Study of Obesity and the Harry R. Kissileff Award from the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behaviour.
Fogel obtained her Bachelor of Science in Systems Biology from the University of Sunderland, her Master of Science from Bielefeld University, and her PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Birmingham.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Lai Jun Shi, Senior Scientist I
A scientist under the Human Development programme at A*STAR IHDP, Lai Jun Shi’s research interests focus on the role of nutrition in pregnancy outcomes and offspring health. In addition, she’s also keen to understand the impact of women’s changing life-stages and circumstances (e.g. preconception, pregnancy, motherhood) on their lifestyle habits (e.g. diet, physical activity) and health outcomes.
In 2018, she received the Robert Suskind and Leslie Lewinter-Suskind Travel Award.
Lai obtained her Bachelor of Nutrition & Dietetics, her Masters of Clinical Epidemiology and her PhD in Community Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology from The University of Newcastle, Australia.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Priti Mishra, Scientist
Priti Mishra's research interests lie in developing new statistical models, and the application of various statistical methods and bioinformatics tools to derive biologically relevant information from multi-omics data.
She leads projects that longitudinally profile the associations of various maternal as well as offspring parameters, related to antenatal, in utero and postnatal stages, using multi-omics platforms.
Mishra obtained her Bachelor of Technology from the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, India; her Master of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India; and her PhD in Metabolomics from the National University of Singapore.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Alexander Mok, Research Fellow
Alexander Mok is a research fellow with the Human Development programme at A*STAR IHDP. His research and professional interests span the fields of integrative human physiology, epidemiology, public health policy, and health economics.
Appreciating that population health is influenced by a range of social-ecological factors which lie beyond the remit of the healthcare sector, he endeavours to contribute in research and policymaking to tackle the social determinants of health inequalities.
Prior to joining SICS, Mok was a consultant with the World Health Organization (WHO), working on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases and their impact on COVID-19 outcomes.
He completed his PhD in Population Health Sciences from the University of Cambridge, investigating the impact of lifestyle risk factors on chronic diseases and life expectancy. Keen to understand the nexus between science and policy, and the translation of research into practice, he subsequently obtained a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from the University of Oxford.
Previously, Mok graduated with a Master’s degree in Epidemiology and completed interdisciplinary studies in public health at Harvard University.
Find out more about him here.
PUBLICATIONS
Bryan Ng, Scientist
Bryan Ng’s research focuses on human ageing and age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases which lead to dementia.
Ng previously held a visiting research fellow position at the UK Dementia Research Institute at University College London studying cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of ageing in Alzheimer’s disease patients. He found that the levels of soluble factors associated with cellular senescence, one of the major hallmarks of ageing, can differentiate Alzheimer’s disease patients from age-matched individuals. Prior to his post-doctoral work, he worked on human stem cell models of Huntington’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. During his PhD studies, he showed that stem cell models in a dish can reflect clinical outcomes of Alzheimer’s disease patients from whom the stem cells were derived in a deeply phenotyped cohort.
Trained in studying human stem cell models and fluid biomarkers of neurodegenerative diseases, Ng is particularly interested in working at the interface between clinical and preclinical studies related to the interaction between ageing, the biggest non-genetic risk factor of multiple chronic diseases including neurodegenerative diseases, and dementia. His research will focus on early ageing and its association with dementia risks specifically in the adult participants of the GUSTO and S-PRESTO cohorts at A*STAR IHDP. Through his research, Ng aims to improve overall health-span of individuals who may be at risk of suffering from age-related neurodegenerative diseases.
Ng obtained his Bachelor of Science (Hons) in life sciences specialising in molecular and cell biology with a minor in biophysics from National University of Singapore, before obtaining his PhD from the University of Oxford on stem cell models of Alzheimer’s disease. During his PhD studies, Ng received Alzheimer’s Research UK’s Early Career Award.
PUBLICATIONS
Alicia Salamanca Sanabria, Scientist
Her research interests lie in digital health interventions with a focus on the prevention and treatment of common mental disorders (CMD) such as depression and anxiety, as well as non-communicable diseases (NCD) through healthy lifestyles, sleep, and mental well-being in a holistic manner. She also looks into validating and implementing cognitive behavioural therapy for CMDs in children, youth and adults, and the development and validation of culturally adapted intervention frameworks.
Salamanca Sanabria has been involved in the LVLUP intervention – a smartphone-based conversational agent-delivered holistic lifestyle intervention for the prevention of non-communicable diseases, and common mental disorders (anxiety and depression). She has also worked on a culturally adapted cognitive behavioural internet-delivered intervention for depressive symptoms, and assessed the efficacy and acceptability of an internet-delivered intervention for resilience among college students.
She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from El Bosque University in Colombia, her Master of Science in Clinical Psychology and Graduate Diplomate/Specialist in Clinical Psychology from the Catholic University of Colombia, and her PhD in Psychology from the Trinity College Dublin in Ireland.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Alessandro Sparacio, Scientist
Alessandro Sparacio's research at SICS encompasses studies on cognition, mood, and stress, where he is actively engaged in advancing the field of nutrition and health. In this capacity, Sparacio orchestrates the design of clinical studies and meticulously crafts protocols to ensure scientific integrity while maintaining operational feasibility.
Sparacio completed his PhD studies with a specialisation in stress regulation and well-being. A pivotal part of his doctorate programme involved leading a multi-site mindfulness project. This ambitious endeavour involved collaboration with 60 researchers across 37 sites, resulting in the collection of data from 3,627 participants. The study's findings provided evidence that brief stand-alone mindfulness exercises are more effective than an active control condition in reducing stress levels among participants. While pursuing his PhD, he also undertook two significant meta-analyses that evaluated the efficacy of various regulation strategies in reducing stress. The first pre-registered meta-analysis assessed the impact of internal regulation strategies like mindfulness and biofeedback on stress reduction. The second meta-analytic synthesis took the form of a registered report and explored the effectiveness of external regulation strategies, including being in nature and emotional social support. Both meta-analyses highlighted the need for improvement in the literature on stress regulation due to issues such as underpowered studies and high risk of bias.
He obtained his bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in social psychology from the University of Milano-Bicocca, and earned his joint PhD from Université Grenoble Alpes and Swansea University.
Find out more about him here.
PUBLICATIONS
Noor Hidayatul Aini Bte Suaini, Senior Scientist I
Besides her role at A*STAR IHDP, Noor Hidayatul Aini Bte Suaini is also a research associate with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
She started her research journey in paediatric food allergy during her Honours year at the University of Melbourne where she looked into the epidemiology and genetics of vitamin D deficiency which is known to be one of the risk factors for food allergy in Australian children living in Melbourne. Since then, her research has primarily focused on investigating the environmental and genetic risk factors for food allergy in Australian children compared to Asian children who are residing in Australia. While she predominantly works on food allergy, she has also explored other atopic diseases such as asthma, allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis.
A significant project she has worked on is the HealthNuts study, a population-based longitudinal study of food allergy comprising 5,300 infants in Melbourne, Australia. The infants were recruited when they were a year old and were followed up at age two, four, six and 10. Given the comprehensive nature of the study and data collected, the HealthNuts study has formed the basis of all her past research work.
Suaini received the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Meeting Travel Award, the Murdoch Children's Research Institute Travel Scholarship and the Centre for Food and Allergy Research Travel Award in 2018, and in 2017 she received the Pediatric Allergy and Asthma Meeting Travel Award, the Abstract award for outstanding research and abstract presentation at the Pediatric Allergy and Asthma Meeting , the Henry and Rachel Ackman (University of Melbourne) Travelling Scholarship, and the Global Young Scientists Summit Travel Award.
She obtained both her Bachelor of Science and PhD from the University of Melbourne.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Sun Lijuan, Senior Scientist II
Sun Lijuan’s research focuses on the role of nutrition and food composition in regulating glycaemic and insulinemic response to prevent obesity and diabetes.
In collaboration with industry partners and academic institutes, Sun has worked on projects such as the activation of brown adipose tissue to regulate energy expenditure and thyroid hormones in healthy humans and hyperthyroid patients; how the food sequence or macronutrient composition affects postprandial glycaemic and insulinemic responses; and how chronic nutraceuticals and cold exposure induce the white adipose tissue browning process.
Sun obtained her PhD from the Institute for Nutritional Science in China and subsequently did her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Kentucky. She also spent six months as a visiting scholar at the Nestlé Research Center in Switzerland and seven months at the Yale School of Medicine.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Elaine Tham, Scientist
Besides her role at A*STAR IHDP, Elaine Tham is also an associate fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the U.K., a member of the British Psychological Society, and a student non-technologist of the European Society of Sleep Technologists.
She has a broad interest in longitudinal child sleep development, particularly using more objective techniques like sleep polysomnography or sleep actigraphy; child neurodevelopment, especially in the domains of cognitive neuroscience, memory and learning; and maternal sleep, including how maternal sleep associates with maternal mood, which may in turn relate with child development.
Tham has worked on projects involving sleep actigraphy where an actigraph watch was used to access objective sleep activity data in GUSTO infants from age six months to 54 months. Industry projects she has worked in involved deriving longitudinal sleep trajectories across childhood and relating them to individual differences in neurodevelopment. She’s also involved in collaborations with the Neurodevelopment Research Centre where the team explores interplay between genetic and environmental factors on sleep and subsequent child development.
She obtained both her Bachelor of Science and PhD in Psychology from the University of York.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Xu Jia, Senior Scientist II
Xu Jia is a bioinformatician in multi-omics gut microbiome under the institute’s Human Development programme.
Her research interests mainly focus on the symbiosis between gut microbiome and human host. Hence, she has worked on multi-omics data to identify microbiota with key roles in the child development and metabolic diseases, and also researched the mechanism in this relationship. This provides insights into early prevention of certain diseases and microbiome-based precision interventions.
Projects she has worked on include effects of ethnicity and early life exposures on the establishment of gut microbiota; rthe effect of host genetic variation on the child gut microbiome; and integrative study of metabolomics and microbiome during child development.
In 2019, her abstract titled ‘Ethnic Diversity Among The Key Factors Influencing The Development Of Human Gut Microbiota’ was selected among almost 800 abstracts as a winner of a travel award for the 11th DOHaD World Congress.
Xu obtained her PhD from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
Hannah Yong, Senior Scientist I
Hannah Yong's research interests lie in understanding the placental mechanisms underlying pregnancy disorders with the ultimate goal of developing novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets to improve maternal and foetal health during pregnancy, which will benefit women and their offspring in the long term.
Significant projects she has worked on include investigating the impact of placental endocrine function on fetal growth and postnatal metabolic outcomes; characterisation of maternal susceptibility genes in pre-eclampsia; and exploring the roles of vitamin D, its receptor and binding protein in intrauterine growth restriction. Under an A*STAR International Fellowship between 2017 and 2018, she investigated the importance of placental endocrine function in driving maternal pregnancy adaptations, regulating foetal growth and programming of long-term offspring health in a mouse model at the Centre for Trophoblast Research, University of Cambridge.
She has received many awards, including the DOHaD Society Travel Award in 2019; the Avrith Travel Grant from the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge in 2018; the Early Career Research Collaborative Travel Grant from the Bioscientifica Trust in 2018, and the Harold Fox New Investigator Award from the International Federation of Placental Associations in 2017.
Yong obtained both her Bachelor of Biomedicine (Honours) and PhD from The University of Melbourne.
Find out more about her here.
PUBLICATIONS
A*STAR celebrates International Women's Day
From groundbreaking discoveries to cutting-edge research, our researchers are empowering the next generation of female science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) leaders.
Get inspired by our #WomeninSTEM