Published on: 25-Jan-2019 
On January 22 and 23, LKCMedicine’s second annual Scientific Retreat was held in the Clinical Sciences Building. The two intense days were filled with stellar science and vivid interactions. Six sessions included 40 scientific oral presentations and two interactive poster sessions covering 85 separate projects, adding to a total of 125 presentations showcasing the research activities in our School. Many of the new results were presented by several of our newly recruited PhD scholars.
LKCMedicine Vice-Dean Faculty Affairs Professor Michael Ferenczi opened the meeting by reflecting on what the young LKCMedicine faculty have accomplished during its short existence and underlined the importance of communication and sharing of results among colleagues in a friendly and enjoyable atmosphere. In total, 240 participants registered and signed in for the retreat, a remarkable level of participation.
This year, the retreat committee put forward a theme central to LKCMedicine, the human body and the meaning of humanity. In the first keynote lecture, Professor Bruno Reversade from A*STAR, gave an inspiring and highly appreciated lecture on genetic malfunctions in early life. Professor Brian Kennedy, from the Centre for Healthy Ageing at NUS switched gear and presented the second keynote lecture on the biology of ageing and current thoughts about healthy ageing. The last keynote speaker, Professor Atushi Iriki from RIKEN research centre, Japan, and a visiting professor at LKCMedicine, gave a thoughtful lecture on brain function development and the art of a human being. Echoing from his lecture, he advocated the necessity of having the environmental cues and platforms available to the Academic community in order to foster frameworks required for the generation of world class science. Further, the retreat this year marked a turning point in the School’s young history in the growing and prospering awareness that something great is under way from its young faculty.
The vibrant atmosphere on the 20th floor during the award ceremony holds great promises for the beginning of one’s own destiny and culture path. Following the recognition of the three best oral presentations and the three best poster session each given a prize of 500SGD, LKCMedicine Irene Tan Liang Kheng Chair Professor in Neuroscience George Augustine gave the closing remark to the faculty members.
Oral Presentation Prize Awardees:
- Dr Parag Kundu, Senior Research Fellow, Sven Pettersson lab, The gut microbiome of an ageing host: Friend or foe?
- Wee Soon Keong, PhD Student, Eric Yap lab, Whole genome sequencing of novel environmental Ancinetobacter Baumanni that is innately carbapenem-resistant
- Aditya Nair, PhD Student, George Augustine lab, Celltype specific cholinergic modulation of the claustrum
Poster Presentation Prize Awardees:
- Dr Tomoki Naito, Research Fellow, Yasunori Saheki lab, The molecular basis of intracellular cholesterol transport
- Dr Zhou Bingrui, Research Fellow, Yun Xia lab, Modelling autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease with patient iPSC-derived kidney organoids
- Dr Shuba Krishnan, Research Fellow, Christine Cheung lab, NOTCH3, a vascular instability marker to predict poor diagnosis in ischemic stroke patients
Poster Honorary Mentions:
- Dr Rekha Jakhar, Research Fellow, Karen Crasta lab, Exosomes derived from mitotic slippage-induced senescent cells stimulates caveolin-1 regulated inflammatory response in recipient cells
- Soon Hui Rong, PhD student, Toh Hean Ch'ng lab, Studying changes in nuclear plasticity during memory formation using INTACT system
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