Jack Wee Lim

Singapore Immunology Network, A*STAR

Dr. Lim is a senior scientist who integrates structural biology and immunology to crack the cancer code. He is a trained structural biologist who pioneered two major histocompatibility complex class I inventions to identify antigen-specific T cells. He did his PhD at the National University of Singapore. He was awarded the A*STAR International Fellowship to hone his multidisciplinary skills at the University of Pennsylvania and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Grenoble.He currently manages the service platform in mass cytometry and conducts R&D to identify new molecular targets for cancer. As a senior scientist, he has worked with several stakeholders in the field of cancer vaccines, nanotechnology, and immune profiling of various human diseases, including a first-authored cell atlas work in understanding COVID-19 severity.He has published papers in top-tier journals. He is also a regular keynote speaker for Standard Biotools' mass cytometry in Asia Pacific.

Wei-Xiang Sin

Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre (SMART)

Wei-Xiang Sin is a research scientist in the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre (SMART) program on Critical Analytics in Manufacturing Personalized-Medicine (CAMP). He is investigating critical quality attributes and critical process parameters for safe and effective cell and gene therapy manufacturing using a novel cell culture-on-a-chip platform.He earned his PhD in molecular immunology from the Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN)-Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Joint Immunology Program at A*STAR, focusing on how myeloid antigen-presenting cells regulate innate immune responses. Before joining SMART CAMP, he completed postdoctoral training focused on artificial antigen-presenting cells at the Genome Institute of Singapore. He explored the immune causes of rare diseases at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, both part of A*STAR. He also has industry experience specializing in clinical-grade lentiviral vectors for cell and gene therapies.

Deepak Thimiri Govindaraj

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa

Dr. Govindaraj is the center manager of the CSIR Synthetic Biology Centre. He is a trained chemical engineer and has worked in nanobiotechnology, industrial synthetic biology, and drug screening for precision medicine. During his PhD at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, Govindaraj worked on nanobiotechnology methods for cell surface proteomics.He then joined the European Molecular Biology Laboratory for a Marie Curie postdoc, during which time he designed a synthetic baculovirus genome for recombinant protein expression. The work was patented and sold as a product by Geneva Biotech, Switzerland. As a senior scientist at Oslo University Hospital in Norway, Govindaraj established the drug sensitivity screening platform for blood cancer.As Centre Manager at the CSIR, Govindaraj has secured funding from the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Early Career Grant, the National Research Fund Competitive Grant, and the South African Medical Research Council Self-initiated Grant to establish synthetic biology and precision medicine programs.He has published research papers, conference proceedings, and book chapters in reputed journals. His work has resulted in the granting of three patents.

Mutsa Takundwa

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa

As a senior researcher at the Synthetic Biology and Precision Medicine Centre, funded by CSIR, Takundwa works to establish a cancer precision medicine platform. Her research interests are in applied molecular biology, genomics for health interventions, biotechnology, and genetic engineering. She aims to explore the molecular mechanisms in humans, microorganisms, and animals, focusing on human-microbe interactions, clinical treatment responses, and diagnostics. It involves studying metabolite pathways for response and adaptation, as well as genetics related to ancestry and personalized medicine.She started in plant and food security before working in a clinical setting at the University of Cape Town, researching HLA markers in TB/HIV patients. She later joined Hamadi to help respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2021, became a quality control analyst at Roche, focusing on reagent manufacturing in the pharmaceutical industry.Her current work focuses on creating new approaches to repurpose cancer drugs. She graduated with a PhD from the University of Namibia in 2015 as its youngest graduate and a trailblazer for black women. With deep involvement in promoting STEM, she contributes to the African Cancer Leaders Institute, Black Women in Science, and various advisory panels. Currently, she spearheads the Cancer Precision Medicine research within the Synthetic Biology and Nanobiomachines group at the Future Production Chemicals cluster.