Appointment of Associate Professor Gavin Stewart Dawe as Head, Department of Pharmacology

Published: 25 Jun 2020

Associate Professor Gavin Stewart Dawe has been appointed as Head, Department of Pharmacology, at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine with effect from 1 July 2020.

Assoc Prof Dawe is currently the Deputy Head and Education Director of the Department. He also serves as Director of the Neuroscience Phenotyping Core.

Assoc Prof Dawe teaches Pharmacology to Medical, Dental, Nursing and Pharmacy students and pioneered the adoption of online learning and digital technology in his teaching, which includes providing pharmacology revision quizzes in the QuizUp app. He also introduced a pharmacology learning blog accessed thousands of time monthly by learners at NUS and worldwide.

With his research focusing on the neuropharmacology of drugs and cellular therapies for age-related neuroscience and mental health disorders, Assoc Prof Dawe’s notable research contributions include the of discovering fetal microchimerism in maternal brains, advancing the understanding of the signalling functions of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) intracellular domain (AICD), and elucidating functions of the nucleus incertus and the neuropeptide relaxin-3. His current research focuses on the development of novel peptidomimetics and stapled peptides as receptor agonists/antagonists and inhibitors of protein interactions targeting the relaxin family peptide (RXFP) receptors and APP domains. Assoc Prof Dawe has authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and has received several research awards including the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Academic Centre of Excellence Research Award in 2010, the Venus International Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award (Neuropharmacology) in 2017, and the Singapore Neuroscience Association Distinguished Neuroscientist Award in 2017.

Once again, congratulations to Associate Professor Dawe on his new appointment, and our deepest appreciation and gratitude to Professor Fred Wong’s for his dedicated leadership to the Department of Pharmacology for the past six years since 2014.