Bioimaging Asia 2016 - Metabolic, Neuro, Cancer & Cardiovascular Keynote Speakers

Young Tae Chang Head of Laboratory of Molecular of Bioimaging Probe Development, Singapore Bioimaging Consortium (SBIC), A*STAR Young-Tae Chang was born in Busan, Korea, in 1968. He studied chemistry in Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH, Korea) and received his B.S. in 1991. After one and half years of army service in Korea, he started his graduate study at POSTECH and received a Ph.D. In 1997 under the supervision of Prof. Sung-Kee Chung, working on the divergent synthesis of all possible regioisomers of myo-inositol phosphates. He did his postdoctoral work with Prof. Peter Schultz at UC Berkeley and The Scripps Research Institute. In 2000, he was appointed assistant professor at New York University and promoted to associated professor in 2005. He received the NSF Career award in 2005 and his research interests have been chemical genetics, molecular evolution, and artificial tongues. In September, 2007, he moved to National University of Singapore and Singapore Bioimaging Consortium. He is a full professor of Chemistry and leader of Medicinal Chemistry Program of NUS, and Lab Head of Bioimaging Probe Development at SBIC, Biopolis. He published more than 200 scientific papers / 3 books and filed 40 patents so far.
Tai E Shyong Associate Professor, National University of Singapore Dr Tai is a clinician scientist and a senior consultant in the division of endocrinology at the National University Hospital. He has publications in many areas ranging from traditional epidemiology to large scale genetic association studies. As part of this work, he has spent several years attempting to understand the basis of ethnic differences in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus in the Singapore population.
Tchoyoson Lim Senior Consultant, Department of Neuroradiology, National Neuroscience Institute Prof Lim strives to be a well-rounded physician, aiming for excellence in the “three-legged stool” (or in old-style American football: the “triple threat”) of clinical service, education and research. He believes that a doctor must use pioneering research and observation, built on a foundation of best-practice clinical patient interaction, to impart a vision to all stakeholders (including students, patients, payers, and the public). The following is his attempt, with what tools and talents he has, to live up to the standards we all aspire to, with the ample help he has received, “standing on the shoulders of giants”*. Prof Lim received his basic medical degree at the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 1988 and his Master of Medicine (Diagnostic Radiology) in NUS and FRCR (UK) in 1995. He has published over 100 articles and Academic Research Vice Chair, Singhealth Radiological Sciences, Academic Clinical Program (ACP). He is actively involved in education and research and is regularly invited as a speaker at local and overseas conferences. Currently, he is a senior consultant in Neuroradiology, National Neuroscience Institute (NNI), Singapore. He is the Immediate Past President, College of Radiologists, Singapore and Adjunct Professor, Duke-NUS Medical School.
Kanaga Sabapathy Professor and Head, National Cancer Centre Kanaga Sabapathy obtained his B.Sc (Hons) degree in Zoology from the National University of Singapore (NUS), and then his Ph.D. in Molecular & Cellular Immunology from the Institute for Molecular & Cellular Biology (IMCB), Singapore, in 1995. His post-doctoral work was conducted at the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna with Dr Erwin Wagner, studying the c-Jun-N-terminal kinase stress signaling pathway, using genetically-engineered mice. He moved to the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS) in late 1999 as the Principal Investigator of the Laboratory of Molecular Carcinogenesis, and since 2013, is the overall Head of the Division of Cellular & Molecular Research. He is also the Research Director of the Academic Clinical Program in Oncology at SingHealth-Duke-NUS. Dr Sabapathy is a Professor with the Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Program at Duke-NUS; a joint Professor with the Department of Biochemistry at NUS and a joint Research Director at the IMCB. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (UK), and was recently awarded the inaugural National Research Foundation Investigatorship award (Class of 2015) in recognition of his work, to further his investigations on ground-breaking, high-risk research. He has recently been appointed as the Director of Planning and Strategy at the NCCS, to coordinate and oversee all brand planning, strategic planning and analytical activities in the upcoming new NCCS. Dr Sabapathy’s group focuses on investigating the molecular mechanisms involved in cancer development and response to therapy, through the study of the p53 and p73 tumor suppressor paradigms. In addition, his laboratory is involved in generating mouse models to study hepatocellular carcinoma and liposarcomas, amongst others, aimed at both understanding the molecular nature of cancer and designing effective targeted-therapies against the disease.
David Townsend Director, Clinical Imaging Research Center David W. Townsend obtained his BSc in Physics and his Ph.D. in Particle Physics and was a staff member for eight years at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1980, Dr Townsend joined the faculty of Geneva University Hospital. In 1993, he moved to the University of Pittsburgh as an Associate Professor of Radiology and Senior PET Physicist. He was Co-Director of the Pittsburgh PET Facility from 1996-2002, and became Professor of Radiology in 2000. The PET/CT scanner, developed by Dr Townsend and Dr Ronald Nutt, was named by TIME Magazine as the medical invention of the year 2000. In 2006, he was elected a Fellow of the IEEE. He shared with Dr Nutt the 2010 IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology. From 2003 to 2009, Dr Townsend was Director of the Molecular Imaging and Translational Research Program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In July 2009, he became Head of PET and SPECT Development for the Singapore Bioimaging Consortium, a Professor of Radiology at the National University of Singapore and was appointed Director of the A*STAR-NUS Clinical Imaging Research Centre in December 2010. In 2015, he received the Paul C. Aebersold Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.