My principal scientific focus is to understand how fundamental biophysical forces, such as mechanical, electrical, and electromagnetic stimuli, translate into organismal regeneration and survival. I am particularly interested in those biophysical processes that govern skeletal muscle development. Of all the tissues of the body, skeletal muscle is the most responsive of to both mechanical and electromagnetic forces. Moreover, as our largest tissue mass skeletal muscle has evolved to play a predominant role in establishing whole-body maintenance and general health. Exercised (mechanically stimulated) skeletal muscle improves glucose utilization, stimulates fatty acid oxidation, improves insulin sensitivity and metabolic efficiency, promotes cardiovascular health as well as postpones mental and physical senescence. We have recently shown in several published studies that “magnetotransduction” and “mechanotransduction” recruit common enzymatic and transcriptional cascades involved in metabolic stabilisation.

Therefore, a subset of the metabolic adaptations typically associated with exercise can be similarly set into motion by appropriately designed electromagnetic stimulation paradigms, but in response to much briefer intervention and without the physical exertion associated with exercise. Magnetic field therapy may hence be employed as a non-invasive exercise mimetic in the clinically immobilised, frail, or elderly populations. Specifically, I am investigating how mechanical and magnetic stimuli stimulate Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) channel-mediated calcium entry for the ultimate purpose of exploiting this process to promote muscle development. We were the first to describe the existence of mechanosensitive (PMID: 1691450; PMID: 2170636) and magnetoresponsive (PMID: 31518158) TRP channel classes in skeletal muscle.

I have since dedicated much of my scientific career to delineating the role of certain TRP channels in skeletal muscle development as well as in devising methods and technologies capable of exploiting these two forms of biophysical stimuli to non-invasively and non-pharmacologically postpone age- and disease-related muscle loss as well as enhance metabolic efficiency in states of inherent or imposed immobility in collaboration with clinicians , technologists and government agencies here at the NUS/NUH. In brief, with the understanding of how to best modulate this mechanosensitive/magnetosensitive (TRP channel) calcium pathway we are now in a better position to positively influence many aspects of human health and longevity. Our magnetic technologies are currently on path for eventual clinical translation.

My approach to tissue engineering and regenerative medicine is unique in that I focus on the fundamental transduction apparatus normally activated by mechanical or magnetic forces to promote tissue development, in lieu of more conventional pharmacological approaches, a conscious choice. Drugs, although highly specific, activate, at most, only a subset of the downstream enzymatic cascades normally evoked by mechanical or magnetic stimuli and therefore lead to imbalanced developmental responses. Finally, given that we modulate tissue development at the level of fundamental cellular transduction (TRP channels responses) we have been able to conquer certain problematic in vitro and in vivo development programs as well as have exposed numerous counterproductive practices common to conventional tissue-engineering strategies.

Finally, I am also a founder of QuantumTx Pte. Ltd., a NUS spin-off company, whose aim is to design and fabricate for commercialisation magnetic therapeutic devices for human rehabilitation and regenerative therapies. QuantumTx was awarded the Innovation of the Year Product Winner by the Ageing Asia World Ageing Festival in 2020.