Gordon Xiong, Ph.D.

🚀Launch of IMCB Catalyst Grant Program to seed interdisciplinary projects🚀 IMCB recently launched our first Catalyst Grant programs to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation amongst our IMCB researchers. ACE BMRC, Prof Sze-Wee TAN present the cheques to our three group of researchers. 🏆Organ-on-a-chip platforms to model the human cancer-immunity cycle🏆 Dr. Andrea Pavesi and Dr. Qi-Jing Li will bring together their deep expertise in tissue engineering and tumor immunology to develop new tools that model the steps required for the immune system to initiate and sustain a cancer-fighting response. Working with clinician Dr. Joshua Tay (NUHS) and proteomics expert Dr. Radoslaw Sobota, their aim is to build an organ-on-a-chip system to simulate complex tumor-immune interactions that occur in lymphoid tissues, the sites deep in the body where the immune system is trained to attack. Through this in-depth exploration of the cancer-immunity interplay, they hope to catalyze the next wave of immunotherapeutic innovations to improve patient outcomes. Stay tuned and follow us to find out the other two Catalyst Grant awardees! More about the Catalyst Grants The Catalyst Grant program aims to bring together the different expertise across labs to spark new ideas to solve complex challenges and seed for potential moonshot projects. Through this, we hope to pave the way for groundbreaking future work. #IMCBastar #IMCBtalents #IMCBcatalyst #organoids #organonchip #tissueengineering #immunology

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[Professor JungKwang-hwan’s Research Team from the Department of Life Science Publishes a Paper in Nature Communications, a Top-Tier Journal in the Field of General Life Sciences] For about 3.7 billion years, numerous life forms have utilized light. The amount of solar energy that hits the Earth each year is about 10,000 times greater than the amount of energy used by human beings annually. Many life forms have various photoreceptors that allow them to utilize this abundant light as a source of energy and for cell activity.   Found in various biological groups, rhodopsin is a membrane protein photoreceptor that binds retinal (vitamin A) and plays an important role in energy biosynthesis and signal transduction. Recent studies have discovered heliorhodopsin, a new kind of rhodopsin derived from microbes, and research is ongoing on its various functions.   The research team led by Professor Jung Kwang-hwan of the Department of Life Science categorized the functions of heliorhodopsin into 10 groups through metagenomic analysis and discovered that the heliorhodopsin activated by light interacts with the ABC (ATP binding cassette) transporter and enhances its transport capabilities. #LifeScience #Heliorhodopsin #SogangUniversity

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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) continues to be a growing threat to public health, with a staggering estimated 5.2 million deaths resulting from drug-resistant bacterial infections anticipated between 2023 and the end of 2030. To combat this critical public health threat, researchers from the SMART Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) IRG and Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU Singapore) have established a highly effective partnership over the years. This unique collaboration unites experts with diverse backgrounds in antimicrobial research, animal and clinical studies, and more. By pooling their strengths and utilising the state-of-the-art facilities at both institutions, the researchers aim to develop numerous innovative and disruptive strategies for identifying, responding to, and treating drug-resistant infections. Find out more about AMR and NTU Singapore's collaboration below and how it contributes to the fight against AMR. #SMARTMIT #AMR #MIT #NTU #CollaborationInScience #ResearchPartnerships #SMARTCollaborates #InnovativeResearch

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