Research
Five years in laboratory research at Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory and the National University of Singapore, eight peer-reviewed papers, three as first author. I now apply the same discipline to the classroom: a clear question, evidence gathered honestly, and practice changed by what the evidence shows.
Scientific research
My doctoral work was on Saffold virus, the first cardiovirus known to infect humans, identified only in 2007 and very hard to grow in culture. Across three first-author papers I established which cells it can infect, showed that it kills them by programmed cell death, mapped where each of its proteins sits inside an infected cell, and identified the two proteins responsible for triggering that cell death.
As part of a team at Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory I contributed to work on enterovirus 71, a major cause of hand, foot and mouth disease in children. The group adapted a human strain so that it could infect mouse cells for the first time, pinpointed the three amino-acid changes that made this possible, and produced the first mouse model to reproduce the lung complication that causes most EV-A71 deaths.
My earliest published work, at Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, examined how a signalling protein is processed and targeted inside the rice blast fungus, one of the most damaging crop diseases in the world.
Peer-reviewed publications
PhD thesis (National University of Singapore, 2017): Molecular and cellular study of Saffold virus-Penang. Each paper below links to its published version.
Having shown that the virus kills cells, I asked which of its proteins does the killing. Expressing each one separately identified 2B and 3C as the culprits, and showed that a specific part of the 2B protein is essential for the effect.
I tracked where each viral protein goes inside an infected cell. All stayed in the cytoplasm except the Leader protein, which moved into the nucleus in one cell type but not another — and I identified the single amino acid that controls the difference.
The first study to establish which cells this newly discovered human virus can actually infect. Screening eight cell lines found five that supported it, and showed the virus kills cells both by rupturing them and by triggering programmed cell death.
Earlier animal models could not reproduce the lung complication that kills most children who die of EV-A71. This one could, making it a usable platform for testing treatments and vaccines.
A virus that normally infects only humans was made able to infect mouse cells by three precise changes to a single coat protein, working together. The study explains what it takes for a virus to cross into a new host.
Established a mouse model for Saffold virus infection of the nervous system, and located where in the brain and spinal cord the virus settles.
The first report of a human enterovirus 71 strain able to infect rodent cells, achieved through repeated passage, with the responsible genetic changes mapped.
Showed that a signalling protein in the rice blast fungus is cut into two halves inside the cell, that neither half works alone, and that one of them directs the protein to where it is needed.
Educational research
Two plan–act–observe–reflect cycles with a Grade 9 IGCSE Chemistry class of mostly EAL learners. When scaffolds were withdrawn too quickly, the mean score on extended writing fell to 39.6%. Adding paired oral rehearsal and support matched to each student lifted the mean to 62.5%, with students working more independently. The study changed how I judge when support should be removed.
A case study of teaching-assistant-led small-group re-teaching and bilingual support for a group of EAL learners in an IGCSE Biology classroom at a British international school in Shenzhen.
A year-long mixed-methods study with Grade 8 students, randomly grouped into an experimental group (STEM club plus regular lessons) and a control group. The experimental group’s assessment grades rose by about 20% on average over the year while the control group’s dipped slightly. Interviews explored students’ motivation towards a scientific future.
Collaboration
I have never stopped being a researcher; the subject simply changed. I welcome conversations about supervising student research, collaborating on classroom or curriculum studies, contributing to work in virology or science education, or examining and reviewing.
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