LKCMedicine-Imperial Research Partnership

Assistant Dean (External Affairs) Associate Professor Yusuf Ali and Imperial College of London (ICL) Professor Gary Frost co-organised the first Nutrition, Microbiome and Healthy Ageing workshop. There were presentations from 13 speakers from LKCMedicine, ICL, A*STAR and TTSH, with 38 participants joining a lively session on seeking areas for research collaboration.

Imperial College London, LKCMedicine, and NCID hosted their fifth collaborative symposium, focusing on malaria and bacterial infections. Dean Professor Joseph Sung delivered the opening speech, highlighting the School’s successful educational and research partnerships. The virtual symposium featured presentations by LKCMedicine researchers. The event garnered over 170 registrants.

As part of a larger agenda for Imperial College London’s visit to NTU, LKCMedicine had the pleasure of hosting Professor Hugh Brady, President of Imperial College London, on 30 November. Prof Brady, together with Professor Maggie Dallman, Vice-President (International), Associate Provost (Academic Partnerships), and Mr Alex Page, Senior International Relations Officer (Asia), were welcomed by the LKCMedicine Core Leadership Group at the Novena campus. In his introductions, LKCMedicine Dean Professor Joseph Sung expressed his gratitude to Imperial College for the successful outcomes made possible through the Imperial-LKCMedicine collaboration. Vice-Dean (Education) Professor Jennifer Cleland and Vice-Dean (Research) Professor Lim Kah Leong then presented the School’s plans and directions on both Education and Research. Following the meeting, LKCMedicine Governing Board Chairman Mr Lim Chuan Poh hosted the Imperial delegation and LKCMedicine core leadership for lunch.

The Neuroscience & Mental Health Programme of LKCMedicine hosted a joint symposium with Imperial College London on “Neurodegeneration: From molecules to patients” on 7 July at the lecture theatre in the School’s Toh Kian Chui Annex. The symposium featured speakers from both LKCMedicine and Imperial and attracted 114 attendees from institutions all over Singapore. Assistant Professor Anna Barron, Assistant Professor Christine Cheung, Associate Professor Nagaendran Kandiah, Assistant Professor Sarah Langley and Assistant Professor Hiroshi Makino discussed neurodegenerative research being done at LKCMedicine, while Imperial was represented by Dr Chris Butler, Professor Amin Hajitou, Professor Paul Matthews, Dr Raffaella Nativio and Dr Yu Ye. These speakers described a lot of exciting new research on neurodegenerative disorders that spanned the spectrum from very fundamental science to the latest clinical studies of Singapore dementia patients. The event began with introductory remarks by LKCMedicine Professor George Augustine, while Vice-Dean (Research) Professor Lim Kah Leong offered his thoughts at the close of the symposium. Assistant Professors Ch’ng Toh Hean and Tsukasa Kamigaki served as symposium moderators.

After the symposium, 25 research posters were presented by LKCMedicine graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The poster session provided an excellent venue for participants to get acquainted and generated extensive and animated discussion. The event closed with a festive dinner for the symposium speakers in the Medical Library’s Flexi-space. The visit also offered a great opportunity to formulate collaborative research projects. These discussions were initiated over a chili crab dinner and energised by an announcement from Prof Lim describing several new initiatives to foster greater research collaboration between the two institutions. Overall, the symposium was a valuable scientific experience that was even more satisfying because it was one of the first large-scale, in-person scientific events held at LKCMedicine in two and a half years.

Faculty from LKCMedicine and Imperial College London held the fourth joint neuroscience workshop on 22 February, with the theme of “Mental Health”. Professors George Augustine and Paul Matthews started the workshop by welcoming over 60 participants who attended via Zoom. The workshop featured presentations by the following LKCMedicine faculty:

• Assistant Professor Lorainne Tudor Car: Developing and evaluating a conversational agent for promotion of mental wellbeing
• Associate Professor Mythily Subramaniam: Psychiatric Epidemiology: A policy relevant approach
• Associate Professor Suresh Jesuthasan: The slippery slope from fear to anxiety and depression
• Professor Balázs Gulyás: Large cohort population imaging in Singapore, with special regard to the oldest old

The event also featured short talks from early career researchers. There was great enthusiasm from both schools on future collaborations, with both LKCMedicine and Imperial highlighting available opportunities for travel and exchanges for researchers and faculty.

Faculty members from LKCMedicine and Imperial College London held the third joint Neuroscience Workshop on 28 Sept under the Molecular Neuroscience theme. Professor Paul Matthews from Imperial and LKCMedicine’s Professor George Augustine kicked off the workshop by welcoming more than 80 participants who attended it via Zoom. The workshop featured the following presentations by LKCMedicine Faculty:

• Assistant Professor Sarah Langley: Transcriptional dysregulation in Huntington Disease
• Professor Lim Kah Leong: Parkin regulates neuronal lipid homeostasis through SREBP2-LPL pathway – Implication for Parkinson’s disease
• Assistant Professor Christine Cheung: Molecular basis of endothelial abnormalities in vasculopathy of ocular disorder
• Professor George Augustine: Synapsins and synaptic vesicle trafficking

The workshop also incorporated short talks from early career researchers. 

On 22 June, LKCMedicine, in collaboration with Imperial College London (Imperial), held a joint workshop on the consequences of air pollution. Attended by 100 participants from various institutions, including National Environment Agency (NEA) and National Healthcare Group (NHG), the workshop featured multiple experts across medicine, computing, and geography to discuss the consequences and mitigation strategies of air pollution.

The workshop began with an introduction by the workshop’s moderators, LKCMedicine’s Assistant Professor and Provost’s Chair in Molecular Medicine Sanjay Chotirmall and Clinical Chair in Respiratory Medicine, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial Professor Wisia Wedzicha, who is also a Visiting Professor at LKCMedicine. Opening remarks were then given by NTU Singapore’s Senior Vice President for Health and Life Sciences and LKCMedicine Dean, Distinguished University Professor Joseph Sung, and Vice-Dean for International Activities and Professor of Clinical Endocrinology, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London Professor Desmond Johnston. In the opening remarks, both Prof Sung and Prof Johnston highlighted the timeliness of having this workshop in light of increasing air pollution.

A series of short lectures then began, followed by a roundtable session, moderated by Asst Prof Chotirmall and Prof Wedzicha. Discussions focused on how NTU and Imperial College London can better collaborate, as well as finding strategies to address deteriorating air quality in a post-COVID-19 world. The workshop ended with closing addresses by Prof Johnston, and Professor Lim Kah Leong, President’s Chair in Translational Neuroscience and LKCMedicine Vice-Dean for Research. Both Prof Johnston and Prof Lim called for future collaborations and emphasised that support would be provided for this endeavour.

On 18 November 2020, LKCMedicine hosted a joint Neurodegeneration/ Dementia workshop with Imperial College London, co-organised by LKCMedicine Professor of Neuroscience & Mental Health George Augustine and Imperial Professor of Cellular Neurobiology Professor Richard Reynolds, who is also the Director of Brain Bank Singapore. The virtual event was attended by researchers in both the UK and Singapore and after an introduction by Prof Reynolds, Imperial Faculty of Medicine Dean Professor Jonathan Weber and LKCMedicine Dean Professor James Best followed with their opening remarks. Imperial Brain Sciences department head Professor Paul Matthews and Prof Augustine then gave a short presentation on Neurodegeneration research at both institutions. 

The event consisted of three sharing sessions which covered the role of genomics, environmental modifiers, molecular mechanisms & synapses, and featured presentations from LKCMedicine’s research faculty and a roundtable discussion, “Developing collaborations to enhance research potential across Imperial-LKCMedicine”, moderated by LKCMedicine Vice-Dean for Research Professor Lim Kah Leong and Imperial Brain Sciences department Advanced Research Fellow Dr Johanna Jackson.

On 21 May 2020, LKCMedicine and Imperial College London (Imperial) in partnership with National Healthcare Group (NHG) and National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) convened for a workshop to exchange notes on activities of their respective institution with regard to research and clinical management of COVID-19.The workshop was organised and co-chaired by LKCMedicine Vice-Dean for Research Professor Lim Kah Leong together with Imperial’s Chair of Immunology of the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Infectious Disease, Professor Charles Bangham. 

Attended by about 150 participants from Imperial and LKCMedicine, the programme kicked off with a special opening lecture by Executive Director of NCID, Professor Leo Yee Sin titled “COVID-19 – Singapore’s Perspective”. This was followed by the first session of the workshop with rapid-fire presentations by both Imperial and LKCMedicine faculty who are involved in COVID-19 research. The second session of the programme is a roundtable discussion moderated by Prof Bangham and Prof Lim with inputs and thoughts from Prof Leo, and LKCMedicine and Imperial panellists while fielding questions from workshop participants.