Aik Seng Ng

A recipient of the National Science Scholarship from A*STAR Singapore, I am a DPhil student working under the supervision of Prof David Kerr and Dr Cai Shijie. My research focuses on the metabolic deregulations of colorectal cancer (CRC) arising from stromal-epithelial interactions in the tumor-microenvironment (TME).

CRC is one of the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the world. Despite recent advances in CRC therapies, poor clinical outcomes highlight the need for better recapitulation of the mechanisms underlying tumorigenesis. Here, we posit that alteration of core anaplerotic precursors in the TME may impose new vulnerabilities onto CRC against conventional therapies, thus improving clinical prognosis.

During my undergraduate years in Nanyang Technological University Singapore, I undertook research in T-cell signaling under the tutelage of Prof Navin Kumar Verma and Prof George Chandy. Thereafter, I joined p53Laboratory, A*STAR Singapore. Under the supervision of Sir David Lane and Dr Farid Ghadessy, I had worked on functional screens for binders against p53 tumor suppressor protein and contributed to the lab's Covid-19 research efforts.