Dr. Lok also relies on the most leading-edge technologies to gain better understanding of how dengue infects cells. During her graduate work at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore, she was trained in X-ray crystallography, a technique that allows scientists to determine the structure of proteins.

As a postdoctoral fellow at Purdue University, Dr. Lok used X-ray crystallography to show how antibodies can neutralize dengue by disrupting the virus’s structure (see figure). The antibody binds to the dengue virus and rearranges the proteins on its outer shell in a manner that prevents the virus from binding to other cells, rendering the virus incapable of infecting other cells.

With these experiments, Dr. Lok provided proof for a long-suspected mechanism of virus neutralization by antibodies. Many scientists believe this work could offer a promising approach for therapies and treatment for dengue and other infectious diseases, even possibly cancer.

“We are very excited about Dr. Lok joining the Duke-NUS Emerging Infectious Disease Program,” says Dr. Duane Gubler, who heads that research area. “She is doing world-class research that will greatly facilitate the development of antiviral drugs and vaccines for dengue fever and dengue haemorrhagic fever.”

Dr. Wang Hongyan’s academic career has gotten off to a remarkably fast start as she won the Young Scientist 2008 and National Research Foundation Fellowship 2009 awards, two of the most coveted and competitive awards available to young scientists in Singapore.

“It is particularly noteworthy that while many of our faculty obtained their research training overseas, the seminal work that garnered Dr. Wang these awards was all done in Singapore,” says Dr. Shirish Shenolikar, interim program director of the Duke-NUS Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders program.

He continues: “To me, this simply highlights the strength of the local training environment, that it can foster the successful development of talented young researchers like
Dr. Wang. I have high hopes that now, as a faculty member in our signature program in Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders, Dr. Wang herself will play a major role in the future training of Singaporean biomedical scientists.”

Dr. Wang’s expertise is at the intersection of neuroscience and cancer biology. She studies brain tumor formation and has worked alongside several laboratories around the world to establish Drosophila, the fruit fly, as a model organism for revealing the molecular mechanisms that control division of neural stem cells.

Neural stem cells divide asymmetrically: one cell becomes another neural stem cell while the other cell differentiates, heading down the path to become neurons or other mature cells in the brain.

Dr. Wang’s research has shed light on neural stem cell proliferation by examining how brain tumor suppressor genes regulate the division of neural stem cells to inhibit excess self-renewal that can lead to brain tumor formation.

Publishing in top international journals such as Nature and Genes & Development, Dr. Wang has received international recognition for this research.

To examine the function of human brain tumor suppressors, Dr. Wang is collaborating with Dr. Carol Tang and
Dr. Christopher Ang Beng Ti , National Neuroscience Institute, Singapore. In the future, she hopes her research also will include the study of other cancerous tumors.

“The NRF award will help me to attract good, young scientists to my lab,” says Dr. Wang. “We can become more active in more areas, examining neural stem cell division in other model organisms such as the mouse and beginning to look at how asymmetric stem cell division can go awry in other tissues and organs. I chose to come to Duke-NUS because I think it’s one of the strongest neuroscience programs in Southeast Asia and the emphasis on medicine makes our study more meaningful for human beings. This extraordinary NRF funding allows my research to become much more expansive.”