Valerie Shiwen YANG

BSc (First Class Honors), MB BChir, PhD, MRCP, FAMS

Dr Valerie Yang is Clinician-Scientist with joint appointments at the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), where she is a Consultant Medical Oncologist, as well as at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB), where she is Group Leader and Research Clinician. She is also an Assistant Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School.

She received the National Science Scholarship from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, which granted her a full scholarship to read Medicine and a PhD. She graduated from the Royal Free and University College Medical School with a Distinction in Preclinical Medicine, as well as First Class Honours for a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Molecular Medicine. She was conferred the Cluff Memorial Prize and the Goldberg-Schachmann and Freda Becker Memorial Award, and joined the A*STAR Chairman’s Honours List. Dr. Yang then continued with Clinical Medicine at the University of Cambridge on prestigious the MB/PhD Programme. Her PhD was supervised by Dr. Michael Gonzalez and Professor Ronald Laskey, CBE, FRS, where she studied DNA replication, cell cycle regulation and embryonic stem cell pluripotency. Her PhD work won the first prize in Cambridge University’s Graduate Research Symposium, a competition among all Life Science PhD candidates in Cambridge University. This work also led to several publications, as well as oral presentations, including the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory Conference, the Sylvia Lawler Prize Meeting at the Royal Society of Medicine, as well as an invitation to speak at the Chromatin, Chromosomal Stability and Genome Maintenance Conference held in Copenhagen. She also held a teaching position in the Cambridge University School of Medicine as an Associate Clinical Supervisor. Upon her return to Singapore, Dr. Yang commenced post-graduate clinical training as a junior doctor. She underwent residency training in Internal Medicine and was accepted to the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP), UK, and completed specialty training in Medical Oncology at the NCCS. She is accredited as a Specialist in Medical Oncology, a Fellow of the Chapter of Medical Oncologists and a Fellow of the College of Clinician Scientists, Academy of Medicine of Singapore. She was also a fellow of the 2020 Esco Ventures X-A*STAR “Morphosis” program in biotechnology venture creation. Dr Yang has also won numerous awards and grants including the Nurturing Clinician Scientists Award (SingHealth) and the National Medical Research Council Transition Award in 2020. 

Dr. Yang values teaching and mentoring highly. She was an invited lecturer to PhD students, as well as a Clinical Lecturer to medical students at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Duke-NUS Medical School. She also teaches junior doctors, has taken on student attachments at her laboratory and mentors residents. She was the Chairman of the Residents’ Research Committee, National University Health System (NUHS), was selected for the Academic Development Programme at NUHS, and received the Nurturing Clinician Scientists Scheme Award from SingHealth. She is also invited by the A*STAR Graduate Academy and SingHealth Duke-NUS Joint Office of Academic Medicine to be a mentor to A*STAR Clinician Scientist Scholars. 

Dr. Yang believes that interfacing the modifiable gaps in Oncology and the questions that can be answered through evolving technology and innovation, as well as the mentoring of the next generation of young researchers and clinicians, can bring about real change in patient outcomes.

The laboratory warmly welcomes students, clinicians and scientists to join our dynamic team. Dr Yang can be contacted at:

yangswv@imcb.a-star.edu.sg
valerie.yang.s.w@singhealth.com.sg

Research