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A/Prof Mahesh Choolani

A/Prof Mahesh Choolani

A/Prof Mahesh Choolani

obgmac@nus.edu.sg

A/Prof Choolani, a clinician-scientist with a long track record in clinical and basic science research, whose main research goal is translational medicine through the development of technology that addresses the unmet need for faster and more accurate diagnostic testing for precision healthcare of Asian women.

He has been actively pursuing technology for the isolation of cell-based fetal DNA non-invasively from maternal blood for prenatal diagnosis of chromosomal abnormality. The technology has resulted in several patents, publications and interest from industry. He has also introduced and validated non-invasive prenatal testing/screening (NIPT/NIPS) using cell-free fetal DNA in the plasma fraction of maternal blood. This liquid biopsy assay is an excellent screening tool for the three common fetal trisomies (21, 18, 13) and is currently offered to pregnant women in Singapore and the region.

A/Prof Choolani and his research team discovered and subsequently patented the biomarker haptoglobin, present within the ovarian cyst fluid (OCF), which is able to differentiate between benign ovarian tumours and epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) with high diagnostic accuracy. He went on to develop and clinically validate an in vitro diagnostic (IVD) kit, OvaCis™, for rapid detection of haptoglobin in EOCs. The OvaCis™ kit is CE-marked and available commercially, takes five minutes to obtain results and is comparable to frozen section. Collaboration with the Chinese University of Hong Kong has resulted in the development of an Asian-specific preeclampsia risk prediction model and clinical validation in currently underway to evaluate the efficacy, acceptability and safety of first-trimester screening and prevention preeclampsia complications with aspirin prophylaxis. Additionally, he has research interest in the fields of fetal medicine, therapy & immunology, origins of high-grade serous carcinoma of the ovary and stem cells.

Publications

  1. Ji, X., Li, J., Huang, Y., Sung, P. L., Yuan, Y., Liu, Q., Chen, Y., Ju, J., Zhou, Y., Huang, S., Chen,F., Han, Y., Yuan, W., Fan, C., Zhao, Q., Wu, H., Feng, S., Liu, W., Li, Z., Chen, J., ... Mao, M.(2019). Identifying occult maternal malignancies from 1.93 million pregnant women undergoing noninvasive prenatal screening tests. Genetics in medicine : official journal of the American College of Medical Genetics, 21(10), 2293–2302. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41436-019-0510-5
  2. Mahyuddin, A. P., Liu, L., Zhao, C., Kothandaraman, N., Salto-Tellez, M., Pang, B., Lim, D., Annalamai, L., Chan, J., Lim, T., Biswas, A., Rice, G., Razvi, K., & Choolani, M. (2018). Diagnostic accuracy of haptoglobin within ovarian cyst fluid as a potential point-of-care test for epithelial ovarian cancer: an observational study. BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology, 125(4), 421–431. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-0528.14835
  3. Chaemsaithong, P., Pooh, R. K., Zheng, M., Ma, R., Chaiyasit, N., Tokunaka, M., Shaw, S. W., Seshadri, S., Choolani, M., Wataganara, T., Yeo, G., Wright, A., Leung, W. C., Sekizawa, A., Hu, Y., Naruse, K., Saito, S., Sahota, D., Leung, T. Y., & Poon, L. C. (2019). Prospective evaluation of screening performance of first-trimester prediction models for preterm preeclampsia in an Asian population. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology, 221(6), 650.e1–650.e16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajog.2019.09.041
  4. McGovern, N., Shin, A., Low, G., Low, D., Duan, K., Yao, L. J., Msallam, R., Low, I., Shadan, N. B., Sumatoh, H. R., Soon, E., Lum, J., Mok, E., Hubert, S., See, P., Kunxiang, E. H., Lee, Y. H., Janela, B., Choolani, M., Mattar, C., … Ginhoux, F. (2017). Human fetal dendritic cells promote prenatal Tcell immune suppression through arginase-2. Nature, 546(7660), 662–666. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22795
  5. Choolani, M., O'Donnell, H., Campagnoli, C., Kumar, S., Roberts, I., Bennett, P. R., & Fisk, N. M.(2001). Simultaneous fetal cell identification and diagnosis by epsilon-globin chain immunophenotyping and chromosomal fluorescence in situ hybridization. Blood, 98(3), 554–557. https://doi.org/10.1182/blood.v98.3.554
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