Associate Professor Dr. Yee-Joo TAN

Infectious Diseases Translational Research Programme

Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine

National University of Singapore, Singapore

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"Characterization of antibodies against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2: implications for the development of COVID-19 vaccine and diagnostic assays"

 

Dr. Tan is a molecular virologist and her research focuses on hepatitis viruses, influenza viruses as well as newly emerged viruses, like the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), which emerged in 2002, and SARS-CoV-2, which emerged in 2019 to cause the COVID-19 pandemic. She is also interested in the development of new methods for the production of proteins, design of immunogenic protein fragments as well as novel carriers that can be used to enhance immune responses.

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Professor. Dr. Jamal I-Ching SAM

BM, BS, MRCP (UK), FRCPath (UK)
Department of Medical Microbiology
Faculty of Medicine
University Malaya, Malaysia
 

"Seroprevalence and molecular epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Malaysia"

Dr Sam is a medical graduate from the University of Nottingham in the UK, and completed his postgraduate training in Medical Microbiology in London. He joined the University of Malaya in 2005. He is head of the diagnostic virology and advanced (molecular) diagnostics units in the University of Malaya Medical Centre, a 1000-bed tertiary referral centre and a designated COVID-19 hospital in Kuala Lumpur. He teaches both undergraduates and postgraduates. His research interests cover clinical, epidemiological, diagnostic and pathogenesis aspects of chikungunya virus, respiratory viruses, and enterovirus 71, for which he has several national and international grants.

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Dr. Ravindran THAYAN

Head of Virology Unit and Molecular Virologist

Infectious Diseases Research Centre

Institute for Medical Research, Malaysia

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"Updates on COVID-19- Virological Characterization and Impact of D614G mutation"

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Dr Ravindran is a Molecular Virologist by training and is currently the Head of Virology Unit, Infectious Diseases Research Centre, IMR. He is also the Director of WHO National Influenza Centre as well as Coordinator for the WHO National Polio Laboratory. Research interest include viral diseases of public health importance including dengue, influenza, zika, chikungunya, polio and COVID-19 among others. He has been with Virology Unit IMR since 1992 and has been involved in viral outbreak investigation including COVID-19, Polio virus and Measles in 2019, Rabies in 2018, Zika in 2016, Ebola, MERS-CoV and Avian influenza in 2014 and Pandemic Influenza H1N1 in 2009 among others. He is a member of several expert panel including IMR, MOSTI, CREST R&D Grant application as well as Virology Expert Panel for Ministry of Health Malaysia.

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