​LKCMedicine hosts Dame Amanda Fisher FRS

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On 13 March, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine was honoured to host Professor Dame Amanda Fisher FRS, Director of the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences and Head of the Institute of Clinical Sciences, Imperial College London. Dame Amanda was here to deliver a Lecture titled "Epigenetics and Inheritance", which was sponsored by the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) and chaired by Professor Philip Ingham FRS, LKCMedicine's Toh Kian Chui Distinguished Professor and Professor of Developmental Biology. The lecture, held at the medical school's Toh Kian Chui Annex Lecture Theatre in Novena campus, was attended largely by LKCMedicine faculty and staff including Dean Prof James Best.

Dame Amanda is renowned for her pioneering work on HIV in the laboratory of Robert Gallo at NIH and for her subsequent work on the epigenetic control of gene expression at Imperial College. Her lecture highlighted recent findings from her laboratory that have revealed a cadre of proteins that remain bound to individual chromosomes during mitosis and which may be important for re-establishing cellular identity - so-called bookmarking factors - or mediating transition in daughter cells. She also described some fascinating studies of the effects of maternal diet on the expression of imprinted genes in mice, using a series of luciferase-based reporters constructed in her lab that enable non-invasive imaging of allele specific expression throughout the life course of the animal. These studies have revealed how maternal under- and over- nutrition can alter the epigenetic profile of the embryo and result in developmental and behavioural changes that persist in later life. The lecture concluded with a lively Q&A session, after which Dame Amanda was hosted at a working lunch by Prof Best and Prof Ingham.

Dame Amanda was in Singapore to speak at the EMBO Gold Medallists and Young Investigators Meeting on 12 March, which was held at Biopolis Singapore, co-sponsored by LKCMedicine. EMBO has well established connections with Singapore and LKCMedicine. The first ever EMBO meeting outside Europe was organised by Prof Ingham and Assoc Prof Suresh Jesuthasan in Singapore in 2001 and Profs Ingham and Walter Wahli are elected members of this pre-eminent organisation. In 2017, LKCMedicine Nanyang Assistant Prof Luo Dahai was awarded the prestigious EMBO Young Investigator Award, one of 28 researchers under the age of 40 from 11 countries recognised for exceptional research and scientific potential.