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Dr Cheong Jit Kong has multiple roles at NUS Medicine. He is a Research Assistant Professor at the NUS Department of Biochemistry, a Principal Investigator at the NUS Centre for Cancer Research, and the Director of the NUSMed ncRNA Core Facility. He is also the Head of External Innovation for MiRXES Pte Ltd, a Singapore-headquartered RNA technology company that is making diagnostic solutions for the early detection of diseases accessible on a global scale.

Jit completed his PhD training at the Harvard Institute of Medicine and subsequently trained as a Singapore Millennium Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Professor David Virshup’s laboratory at Duke-NUS Medical School. He has been awarded multiple national and international research grants, including the NMRC-CBRG New Investigator Grant, the international St. Baldrick’s Foundation Childhood Cancer Research Grant, the MOE AcRF Tier 2 Research Grant and the National Academy of Medicine Healthy Longevity Global Catalyst Award. He has extensive experience in high-throughput biomarker and drug discovery, signal transduction cascades in cancer biology, as well as designing clinical trials for biomarker validation. He is also a member of the Working Group that developed the World’s first standards for the design, development and validation of miRNA-based diagnostics (Singapore Standards 656; SS656).

I did my PhD training under Professor David Virshup in the Department of Cancer and Stem Cell Biology, Duke-NUS. My PhD work focused on the role of phosphorylation on the regulation of Casein Kinase 1 epsilon (CK1ε), and the effects of such phosphorylation on the CK1ε target genes within the circadian rhythm pathway.

I’m currently a Senior Research Fellow in the ncRNA Core Facility lab, where I manage the Core Facility’s projects, R&D, and am the main point of contact for bioinformatic analyses of our data. My current research interest focuses on the role of miRNAs as a biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis, and as a potential therapeutic biomolecule in a variety of diseases.

Ngai Tsz Wai, Yoyo joined ncRNA core miRNA profiling facility since 2023 as a Research Fellow.
She graduated from Newcastle University in the UK with a BSc Honours in Biomedical Sciences.
She further pursued her PhD studies in NUS-A*STAR IMCB in Singapore in the field of Molecular Biology, specifically, DNA replication and cancer in mouse models. Shortly after her graduation, she worked in the Office of Strategic Alliance in A*STAR GIS forging research collaborations. She also had worked in the Industry exploiting DNA amplification mechanism to deliver therapeutics. Apart from being in-and-out of the lab, she also enjoys daily morning Ashtanga yoga practice and evening practice sharing to the public.

Ms Catharine Low is a research assistant at NUS ncRNA Core Facility, under the supervision of Asst Prof Cheong Jit Kong. She received her Master from University of Western Australia. During her Master course, she did a research project to find the association of Ureaplasma parvum, particularly serovar 1 and serovar 6, in preterm birth. After returning to Singapore, she ventured into cancer research. While serving as an integral member of the miRNA biomarker discovery team at the NUS ncRNA Core Facility, she also devoted time to understand the roles of miRNAs in mediating the pathophysiology of mutant KRAS-driven colorectal cancer.

Catharine is also a talented pianist who enjoys musical pieces from Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy.

Joseph Chin graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2020 with a BSc Honours (Highest Distinction) in Biomedical Engineering.

He joined the NUS ncRNA core facility in 2020 as a trainee under the SG United Traineeship Program. Subsequently, he took on the role of Research Assistant and has been an integral part of the lab ever since, profiling thousands of samples to date and serving as the Lab and Fire Safety lead and the main procurement officer.