Ng Kee Woei

Biography
Dr Ng Kee Woei was one of the early recipients of the National Science Scholarships – Local Graduate Scholarship (PhD), A*STAR, in 2000. With a background in Engineering, he pursued his PhD at the Yong Loo Lin Faculty of Medicine, NUS. After postdoctoral stints in IMCB and IMB, Dr Ng joined NTU and in 2010, he began his tenure-track Assistant Professor position at the School of Materials Science and Engineering. He was promoted to the position of Associate Professor with tenure in 2015. Dr Ng is currently the Program Director of the NTU-Harvard School of Public Health Initiative for Sustainable Nanotechnology (NTU-Harvard SusNano), and the Deputy Director of the Environmental Chemistry & Materials Centre at the Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute (ECMC-NEWRI). In 2016, he was elected as Treasurer of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society – Asia Pacific Chapter (TERMIS-AP).

Research interests
Dr Ng’s research interests are highly interdisciplinary in nature. In the area of biomaterials development, he is developing novel human hair keratin based platforms for various applications, including for skin regeneration. His group has now developed the expertise to extract and process human hair keratins into various 2D and 3D templates including coatings, gels, sponges and electrospun mats. In the area of sustainable nanotechnology, he is interested in understanding the physiological implications of skin exposure to engineered nanomaterials in various scenarios. Through such understanding, his group targets to develop nanotechnologies that are safe to use for both humans and the environment.

Selected publications
Kathawala MH, Ng WL, Liu D, Naing MW, Yeong WY, Spiller K, van Dyke M, Ng KW. Healing of Chronic-wounds – An Update of Recent Developments and Future Possibilities. Tissue Engineering, Part B: Reviews. 2019. In press. [DOI: 10.1089/ten.TEB.2019.0019]

Hartrianti P, Nguyen THL, Johanes J, Chou SM, Zhu P, Tan NS, Tang MBY, Ng KW. Fabrication and Characterization of a Novel Crosslinked Human Keratin-Alginate Sponge. Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. 2016. 4:524-531. [DOI: 10.1002/term.2159]

Wang S, Wang Z, Foo SEM, Tan NS, Yuan Y, Lin W, Zhang Z, Ng KW. Culturing Fibroblasts in 3D Human Hair Keratin Hydrogels. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. 2015. 7(9):5187-98. [DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5b00854]

Leong DT, Ng KW. Probing the Relevance of 3D Cancer Models in Nanomedicine Research. Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews. 2014. 79-80C:95-106. [DOI: 10.1016/j.addr.2014.06.007]

Ng KW, Khoo SP, Heng BC, Setyawati MI, Tan EC, Zhao XX, Xiong SJ, Fang WR, Leong DT and Loo SC. The role of the tumor suppressor p53 pathway in the cellular DNA damage response to zinc oxide nanoparticles. Biomaterials. 2011. 32(32): 8218-8225. [DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2011.07.036]