Regional Faculty

• Professor and Head Medical Oncology
  Saveetha Medical College Hospital. Saveetha University . Chennai
• Senior Consultant Medical and Paediatric oncology Apollo speciality hospital , Sanker Netarlaya , HCG Cancer Centre. Chennai
• More then 15 years experience in Oncology
• More then 50 publication and abstracts in peer review journal .
• More then 50 International and National presentations
• Gold Medal and Honours in MBBS. Recipient of ESMO , ASCO and SIOP fellowship and grants .
• Actively involved in Clinical Trials and Research . Women and cancer
• Founder , CEO and Managing Trustee. Freedom from Cancer Research and Relief Foundation. Public trust

A/Prof Ang Tiing Leong completed his specialty training in Gastroenterology in 2004, and underwent further training in advanced therapeutic endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography and interventional endoscopic ultrasound in Hamburg, Germany, under the mentorship of Professor Nib Soehendra, from 2004 to December 2005.

He is currently the Chief and Senior Consultant at the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Director of the Endoscopy Centre at Changi General Hospital, Singapore. He is the Adjunct Associate Professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. A/Prof Ang is a member of the Residency Advisory Committee for Gastroenterology Training and chair the Gastroenterology Exit Examination Committee. He is also a Member of the National Colorectal Cancer Screening Program Steering Committee as well as the Ministry of Health Technology Advisory Committee.

A/Prof Ang has subspecialty clinical interests in pancreaticobiliary diseases, early GI cancers and advanced therapeutic endoscopy, in particular image enhanced endoscopy, endoscopic resection, therapeutic ERCP and interventional EUS. He is the immediate past President of the Gastroenterological Society of Singapore. He is also a council member of the Asia Pacific Association of Gastroenterology (APAGE) and a member Endoscopy Interest Group, World Gastroenterology Organization (WGO).

His research interests include acid-related disorders, H. pylori infection, pancreatico-biliary diseases, image enhanced endoscopy, therapeutic ERCP and interventional EUS. He sits on sever Editorial board, including Editor of Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Deputy Editor of the Singapore Medical Journal, Associate Editor of the Journal of Digestive Diseases and Member of the Editorial Board of Endoscopic Ultrasound

Dr Chee Cheng Ean graduated from University College London (UCL) Medical School, London, UK with a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Tumour Biology and MBBS (Lond). She then pursued her post-graduate training in the US by completing her residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Haematology and Oncology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Dr Chee is a specialist in medical oncology and currently practices as a consultant medical oncologist and clinician scientist at the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore. She is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) in Internal Medicine, Medical Oncology and Haematology. Dr Chee's interests are in cancers of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract which includes colorectal cancer, liver and pancreas cancers, cancers of the biliary tract, stomach and oesophageal cancers. She is also interested in drug development of novel agents and phase I trials.

Dr Damien Tan obtained his medical degree from the National University of Singapore in 1999 and was accepted as a member of the Royal College of Physicians (UK) in 2006. He achieved his specialist accreditation in the field of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in 2009. He was awarded the SGH fellowship award and Singhealth manpower development award in 2009 and he completed his advanced GI fellowship program (EUS) in Hospital Erasmus, Brussels, Belgium in 2010 and advanced GI fellowship program (ERCP) in Indiana University Medical Center, Indianapolis, USA from 2010 to 2011.

He is currently a Senior Consultant in the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Singapore General Hospital, specializes in the diagnosis and management of pancreato-biliary disorders and therapeutic endoscopy such as ERCP and EUS.

Dr. Dawn Chong is a Consultant in the Division of Medical Oncology at National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), with a clinical specialty in gastrointestinal cancers. She received the Singhealth Health Manpower Development Plan Fellowship Award in 2014 and completed a fellowship in Clinical and Translational Cancer Epidemiology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston. She was awarded the National Medical Research Council (NMRC) Clinician-Scientist Individual Research Grant New Investigator Grant aimed at investigating novel therapeutics for gliomas. She was also awarded the NMRC Research Training Fellowship Award in 2015 for which she obtained a degree in Master of Public Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research focus is in cancer epidemiology, with an emphasis on identifying prognostic and predictive biomarkers of colorectal and hepatobiliary cancers. She has published in several peer-reviewed journals including Lancet Oncology and Gastroenterology, and served as a reviewer in journals including Journal of National Cancer Institute. Dr. Chong has mentored junior doctors and is actively involved in the training of students from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Duke-NUS Medical School.

Dr Toh is Senior Consultant and former Head at the Department of Medical Oncology and now Deputy Director, National Cancer Centre, Singapore. He graduated from the University of London, UK with an intercalated Bachelor of Science in 'Infection and Immunity' from St Mary's Hospital Medical School and qualified as a medical doctor from University of Cambridge, UK. Dr Toh obtained his Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in 2003. He received his medical oncology fellowship training at the Singapore General Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA and at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA. Dr Toh is also alumni at the Harvard Business School. He is currently the vice-chairman of the Academic Clinical Programme (ACP) Oncology for Research and Education.

He is a recipient of the National Clinician Scientist Award for his pioneering work in cell therapy for cancer. He conducted the first cancer vaccine and T cell therapy clinical trials in Singapore, and continues to work actively in the field of cancer immunotherapy, immunology and inflammation. He also had a strong interest in drug development for gastrointestinal cancers including colon and liver cancer. Dr Toh is an Associate Professor and College Master at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School. He is also an adjunct Principal Investigator at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR. He is council member in the Singapore Medical Association and the Singapore College of Physicians.

Dr Toh has published 75 per review journal papers to date including in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, Nature Genetics, Lancet Oncology, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research and Stem Cells.

Dr Ho is an associate professor and consultant in clinical oncology at University Malaya Medical Centre and University Malaya specialist Centre, Kuala Lumpur. He was trained at Barts and The London NHS Trust and The Royal Marsden NHS Trust in London. He attained Certificate for Completion of Specialist Training (CCST) in 2007 and joined the Faculty of Medicine at University Malaya. He was the recipient of Joint Commission Internatinal (JCI) Outstanding Young Malaysian Award in 2009 for medical innovation. His research interests involve breast, gastrointestinal and gynaecological cancers. He is involved in many national and international collaborative research work and is a council member of Malaysian Oncological Society (MOS).

Dr. Iain Tan is a Senior Consultant, Medical Oncologist and leads the colorectal cancer service within the GI cancer team at the Department of Medical Oncology, NCCS. He co-chairs the Colorectal Cancer Multidisciplinary tumor board and the centre's GI cancer Comprehensive Research Program. Concurrently, he is a clinician scientist at the Genome Institute of Singapore, A*Star. His bench-to-bedside research seeks to improve patient care by intelligently exploiting the latest scientific advances. His research focuses on metastasis, drug resistance and immunotherapy in colorectal cancer, with a special interest in non-invasive diagnostic tests particularly circulating tumor DNA.

He is a key driver of genomic medicine in Singapore and the disease champion for colorectal cancer in Singapore's POLARIS program which is developing the latest high-end molecular tests for Singaporeans. He has published widely in leading journals including Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lancet Oncology, Science Translational Medicine. He actively teaches specialists-in-training, young doctors and medical students and is a core faculty in both Medical Oncology (clinical competency committee) and Internal Medicine (research). He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS. He has been recognized with multiple local and international awards for his clinical service and research including the Courage Award (SARS, 2003), ASCO Young Investigator Award (2010) and ASCO Merit Award (2011). In 2014, he received the Singapore Youth Award (2014), the country's highest award for youths.

Prof Jimmy So received his surgical training in National University Hospital, Singapore. He was trained in Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery, Surgical Oncology, Bariatric Surgery, Therapeutic Endoscopy and Minimally Invasive Surgery. He received fellowship training at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA and holds the appointment as the visiting consultant surgeon in Esophageal and Gastric Surgery at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. A multidisciplinary program for Esophageal and Gastric Cancers in NUH was also established by him in 2005. He also received fellowship training in gastric and esophageal cancer surgery in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong, and is the pioneer in endoscopic surgery for early esophageal and gastric cancers, robotic surgery and Peroral Endoscopic Myotomy (POEM) for Achalasia in Singapore.

Prof So's interests are gastroesophageal cancer and obesity. He received numerous research grants for these topics and has published more than 100 peer reviewed scientific papers. Prof So received Gold Award at the annual scientific meeting of the National Healthcare Group and is invited regularly to speak at international conferences. He is the founding president of the Asia-Pacific Gastro-esophageal Cancer Congress in 2006, and was the council member of Consensus Meeting at the 10th International Gastric Cancer Congress, held at Verona, Italy in 2013. In addition, he is a founding member of Asia-Pacific Bariatric Surgery Society, a member of editorial board for Journal of Gastric Cancer and reviewer for a number of prestigious medical journals including British Journal of Surgery, Surgical Endoscopy and Digestive Disease and Science.

Professor Jin-Young Jang currently works at the Seoul National University College of Medicine in Korea. He is also a member in the Scientific Committee (chair of pancreas division) in the International HPB Association Congress 2014 and the International Association of Pancreatology 2013. Additionally he is also a member of the Consensus guideline of pancreas IPMN and MCN from 2011. He is the Secretary General of the Korean Pancreas Surgery Club and the Korean Association of Hepato-biliary-pancreatic Surgery.

Dr Koo Si-Lin is a Consultant in Medical Oncology from the National Cancer Centre, Singapore. She graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery. She completed her Medical Oncology specialist training in 2014. She has a budding interest in cancer research and is developing her research in cancer immunology. She is actively engaged with researchers in Singhealth and A*STAR in developing translational research.

Dr. Melissa Teo Ching Ching is the Head & Senior Consultant in the Division of Surgical Oncology, NCCS in Singapore. She is also the Chair in the Oncology Track & GI Oncology Session, 19th Asian Congress of Surgery and 1st SingHealth Surgical Congress. She is also a member of Australia and New Zealand Melanoma Trials Group (ANZMTG) and the Gastrointestinal Tract Oncology, NCCS Cancer Service Line Development (CSLD).

Pierce Chow is Co-Director (Surgical) of the Comprehensive Liver Cancer Clinic at the National Cancer Centre Singapore and Senior Consultant Surgeon in HPB and Transplant Surgery at the Singapore General Hospital. He is concurrently Professor and Course Director at DukeNUS Medical School Singapore, Adjunct Faculty at the Genome Institute of Singapore and Research Director at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology Singapore.

Professor Chow was the Chapter of Surgeon's Gold Medallist at the conjoint Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh/M.Med (Surgery) examination in 1994 and subsequently completed a clinical fellowship in Liver Transplantation at the Queensland Liver Transplant Service. In 1995, he was recipient of the Young Surgeon's Award of the Academy of Medicine Singapore for his research into the patho-physiology of liver blood flow and regeneration.

In addition to managing a busy HPB surgical oncology service, Pierce has researched extensively on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). He leads collaborative research on the genomic heterogeneity of HCC and applications in precision medicine. He co-founded the Asia-Pacific Hepatocellular Carcinoma Trials Group in 1997 and has been the protocol chair of 5 multi-national trials. In 2012 the National Medical Research Council Singapore conferred him the National Outstanding Clinician-Scientist Award for improving clinical outcomes of patients with his research on Liver Cancer.

Prof Chow was awarded the NMRC Translational-Clinical Research Grant for the Flagship Program in Liver Cancer in 2016 and has commenced the multi-national PLANET study (Precision Medicine in Liver Cancer Asia-Pacific Network).

Shailesh V. Shrikhande is Professor of Surgery and Head of GI and HPB Cancer Surgery at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India. He has received specialist training in Pancreatic Research and Surgery at the University of Bern, Switzerland and University of Heidelberg, Germany. A fellow of the prestigious Warren Fellowship of the IHPBA, he has published over 180 clinical and basic science papers (including a series of 500 Whipple resections) in leading peer reviewed journals and given live operative demonstrations on pancreatic, gastric and colorectal cancer in workshops all over India and Asia. Apart from over 400 invited lectures and orations around the world, he has contributed over 50 book chapters and edited 4 books on GI and Pancreatic Cancers. To promote awareness on pancreatic tumors, he founded the website www.pancreaticcancerindia.com. He serves on editorial and review boards of many international journals and is the Vice Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the IHPBA and a member - at - large of the Asia - Pacific - HPBA. He is also the President Elect, Indian Chapter of IHPBA. He is the only Indian who is a member of the well-known International Study Group of Pancreatic Surgery (ISGPS). In recognition of his work on GI Cancer Surgery in India, he was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS - ad eundem) of England in 2014.

Professor Stephen L. Chan is currently the clinical Associate Professor at the Department of Clinical Oncology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Professor Chan is the associate editor of Asia-Pacific journal of Clinical Oncology and serving the editorial board of Liver International. He is the key investigator in multiple international clinical trials on novel drugs for liver cancers. He is currently international member of the NCI Hepatobiliary Task Force of the Gastrointestinal Steering Committee in United States. Since 2016, he has also been the Chairman of Hand-in-hand Cancer Foundation, which is a charity serving the cancer patients in the community. He published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers in international journals including the Journal of Clinical Oncology and the Lancet.

He has been the principal investigator of a number of clinical trials including projects funded by General Research Fund, University Grant Committee in Hong Kong, Innovation and Technology Fund and Hong Kong Health and Research Fund of Hong Kong Government, as well as international grants such as the Sister Institution Network Fund of MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Dr. Stephen Tsao is a senior consultant in the Gastroenterology Department of the Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Adjunct Associate Professor with Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. He underwent undergraduate and postgraduate training in the UK, and obtained his Fellowship to the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh, UK) in 2012. He furthered his training in image enhanced endoscopy and ESD in Kobe, Japan under Japanese Society of Gastroenterology Research Fellowship in 2010.

After Dr. Tsao completed his specialist training in the UK, he moved to Singapore in 2008. He has a special interest in small and large bowel disease, in particular inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer, and endoscopic treatment (ESD) for early gastrointestinal cancers. Dr. Tsao is an expert in both diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy, and is leading the video capsule endoscopy service at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He also has a keen interest in teaching and developing endoscopic skills of trainee specialists. Dr. Tsao has a postgraduate diploma in medical education from Staffordshire University UK. He is a keen teacher and strong believer in educating the next generation of doctors and raising public awareness on various medical conditions.

Sun Young Rha is a professor of Medical Oncology in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Yonsei University College of Medicine. She is also the vice president of Songdang Institute for Cancer Research, Yonsei University College of Medicine, and the director of the Human Research Protection Center, Severance Hospital of the Yonsei University Health System in Seoul, Korea.

Professor Rha is a clinical and translational researcher, mainly in the areas of gastric cancer, GU cancer (renal cell and bladder carcinoma) and sarcoma. Her research interests include therapeutic strategies and new drug development, genomics-based biomarker development and drug screening, and pharmacogenomics. She has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles. As a clinical researcher, she has been involved in various global Phase I-III clinical trials including many novel immune-oncologic agents, and worked as a main principal investigator for the Korean Cancer Study Group(KCSG). She is also a translational researcher involved in preclinical anticancer drug screening with potential mechanism evaluation and in several correlative studies for target and biomarker development in gastric cancer.

Currently, Professor Rha is leading phase I and early phase clinical trial team of Yonsei Cancer Center. She is currently actively working as a chair of Education Committee of KCSG, and a chair of Academic Committee of Korean Association of Clinical Oncology (KACO). She is also a key member of the Cancer Therapeutics Research Group (CTRG), the Asia Pacific cancer study organization in gastric cancer division and early drug development, and the Federation of Asian Clinical Oncology (FACO).

Prof. Dr. Syed Md Akram Hussain, MBBS, FCPS, FRCP, FACP is a renowned Oncologist of Bangladesh, working as Consultant, Oncology at a reputed hospital of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Square Hospitals Ltd. He has prominent reputation in education, skill and adequate experiences in working in various capacities of hospitals at home and abroad. He has 26 years of practical experience and expertise in the field of Clinical Oncology.

Prof. Akram has a very rich track record of working in different organizations in his career. Previously he has been working as Chief Consultant Clinical Oncologist in Lab Aid Specialized Hospital Dhaka. Simultaneously he was also the Senior Consultant of Ahsania Mission Cancer Hospital. He is the Founder Professor and Chief Oncologist of North East Cancer Hospital, Sylhet. He is also widely known and famous as he was the Founder Chairman of Oncology Department of BSM Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Throughout his challenging career he has earned a lot of professional degrees which are MBBS; FCPS; WHO Fellowship from National Cancer Institute - Bangkok; KOICA Fellowship, National Cancer Institute - South Korea; WHO Fellowship, Tata Memorial Hospital - India; FRCP (Glasgow); FRCP (Edinburgh); FACP (USA). He has obtained numerous clinical training from different world class institutions such as Tata Memorial Hospital (India), German Cancer Research Institute, Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA. etc.

He has credited with 125 articles published in both national and international journal. He was involved with national policy formation, such Bangladesh Cancer Control Policy Formulation, National Tobacco control strategy, Non Communicable Diseases Control Strategy, National Heath Research Strategy. He is contributing coauthor of book on ' Tropical Heamato Oncology' published by Springer.

Dr. Takayuki Yoshino, M.D., currently works at the National Cancer Center Hospital East in Chiba, Japan, where he is the Director for the Department of Gastroenterology and Gastrointestinal Oncology and the Head of the Clinical Research Coordinating Division. Dr. Yoshino has a particular interest in chemotherapy for gastrointestinal cancers, especially for colorectal cancer, where he focuses on various investigational new agent and translational research regarding potential predictive and prognostic biomarkers.

He received his medical degree from the National Defense Medical College and after completing his first residency there, he moved to the National Cancer Center East where he specialized in gastrointestinal oncology. Dr. Yoshino later spent five years at the Shizuoka Cancer Center and during this time, he studied in the USA for a year at several world-renowned institutions, including the Mayo Clinic, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. In 2007 Dr. Yoshino returned to the National Cancer Center East, where he has held senior positions ever since.

Dr. Yoshino has had over 20 first or corresponding author publications on metastatic colorectal cancer since 2012, with several articles published in Lancet Oncology and The New England Journal of Medicine. In addition, Dr. Yoshino holds several professional appointments, serving on guideline member of the Japanese Society for Cancer of the Colon and Rectum, international guideline member of the European Society for Medical Oncology, and guideline member of the Japanese Society of Medical Oncology as well the administrative board for The Japanese Association for Molecular Target Therapy of Cancer.

Asst Prof Tan Ker Kan graduated from the medical school at the National University of Singapore, and obtained his fellowship diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He completed the fellowship training programme in Colorectal Surgery, at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia. During his time there, he received formal training in advanced laparoscopic colorectal surgery, and complex pelvic operations such as exenterations for recurrent and advanced pelvic malignancy.

Asst Prof Tan has a keen interest in the field of clinical research, and has authored numerous publications and book chapters. He is also an invited reviewer for renowned journals including Lancet and British Journal of Surgery. Dr Tan is also active in his role as a Clinical Lecturer in the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, where he is involved in the education of both medical students and surgical trainees.

Dr. Yong obtained his medical degree and postgraduate training in University of Aberdeen, Scotland. After completing an oncology fellowship at the National University Hospital, he was awarded the A*STAR international clinical pharmacology fellowship at the University of Chicago. His clinical interest is in gastrointestinal cancers and his research interests are pharmacogenetics and epigenetics in cancer.

Dr. Lin is a well-experienced medical oncologist and a faculty at the Department of Oncology in National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) in Taiwan. He earned his M.D. degree at College of Medicine in Chung Shan Medical University in 1999. After that, he moved to NTUH to have his residency training in the Department of Internal Medicine and fellowship training in the Department of Oncology during 1999-2005. He has worked as a faculty at the Department of Oncology in NTUH since 2005.

He later received further advanced research training at the Department of Medicinal Chemistry in College of Pharmacy of Ohio State University (OSU) in U.S.A. in 2007. During the same period of time, he was also an observer at Phase I clinical trial center and Division of Hematology and Oncology in Department of Internal Medicine in OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center in U.S.A. He then came back to Taiwan and has earned his Ph.D. degree at the Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine at National Taiwan University College of Medicine in 2014. He has been a clinical assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of Oncology at National Taiwan University College of Medicine since 2016. He has published several basic researches and clinical studies including one in Lancet Oncology.

Dr. Lin's specialties are in gastrointestinal cancers (especially in colorectal cancer) and lung cancer. His research interests focus on tumor biology, molecular biology, signal transduction of cancers and therapeutic development among cancers as well as immuno-oncology. He also conducts and runs clinical trials in NTUH. He has been invited as a speaker in many nationwide scientific meetings and also reviewer for academic journals.