Prof Dean Ho

Appointment(s)

Provost’s Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Pharmacology
Director, The N.1 Institute for Health (N.1)
Director, The Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM)
Head, Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore

Degree(s)

University of California, Los Angeles
Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, January 2005

Biography

Professor Dean Ho is currently Provost’s Chair Professor, Director of The Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM) at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine; Director of The N.1 Institute for Health (N.1), and Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
Prof. Ho and collaborators manage a portfolio of over 10 prospective, interventional human clinical trials. His team successfully developed and validated CURATE.AI, a powerful artificial intelligence platform that personalizes human treatment for a broad spectrum of indications ranging from oncology, to digital therapeutics and infectious diseases, among others. His team also developed IDentif.AI to optimise combination therapy design against SARS-CoV-2 and to address antimicrobial resistance.
Prof. Ho is an elected Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors (NAI), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and the Royal Society of Chemistry. He was also named to the HIMSS Future50 Class of 2021 for his internationally-recognised leadership in digital health. Prof. Ho is also a Subgroup Lead in the World Health Organization (WHO) Working Group for the regulation of AI for Health, which was recently released globally.
Prof. Ho is an author of the best-selling book, Medicine Without Meds, which has released internationally. The book serves as a blueprint for a broad community – from business leaders and venture capitalists to healthcare systems – on how to accelerate practice-changing innovation to patients and caregivers. All author proceeds from the book will be benefiting the WisDM Patient Impact Fund at NUS.
In popular and international media, Prof. Ho has appeared on the National Geographic Channel Program “Known Universe,” and Channel News Asia’s “The Hidden Layer: Healthcare Trailblazers”. His discoveries have been featured on CNN, The Economist, Straits Times, National Geographic, Forbes, Washington Post, NPR and other international news outlets.
Prof. Ho is a recipient of the Tech Heroes from Crisis Pathfinder Award from the Singapore Computer Society, NSF CAREER Award, Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Award, and V Foundation for Cancer Research Scholar Award, among others. He has also served as the President of the Board of Directors of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS), a leading global drug development organization.

Research Areas/Research Interest

My research program is based on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to optimise clinical combination therapy in patients. Specifically, my harnessing CURATE.AI, I have multiple active human clinical trials cleared for start, or are underway. These include:
– Solid cancer human combination therapy optimised by CURATE.AI (with TTSH and a cleared study with Stanford University).
– Hematologic cancer combination therapy optimised by CURATE.AI (with NUH)
– Liver and kidney transplant immunosuppression optimisation (with University of Florida).
– Personalised cognitive training/learning as a digital intervention (NUS/NUH trial being written).
Our clinical studies are first-in-class, and have already resulted in a durable patient response with halted disease progression.
Our research program represents an intersection of AI-driven optimisation, regulatory policy, clinical trial innovation, and many other factors that all contribute towards practice-changing biomedical engineering. We harness extensive collaborations with NUS, NUH, TTSH, and an international network of colleagues to enable our clinical studies to come to fruition and drive patient and healthcare operations impact. Our aim is to re-define the scale of advancement that can be realised from The N.1 Institute, Biomedical Engineering, and other stakeholders.

Selected Publications

N-of-1 health optimization: Digital monitoring of biomarker dynamics to gamify adherence to metabolic switching.

Wang P, Tadeo X, Chew HS, Sapanel Y, Ong YH, Leung N, Chow EK, Ho D.

Radiation therapy with phenotypic medicine: towards N-of-1 personalization.

Chong LM, Wang P, Lee VV, Vijayakumar S, Tan HQ, Wang FQ, Yeoh TD, Truong AT, Tan LW, Tan SB, Senthil Kumar K.

CURATE.AI-assisted dose titration for anti-hypertensive personalized therapy: study protocol for a multi-arm, randomized, pilot feasibility trial using CURATE.AI (CURATE.AI ADAPT trial)

Truong AT, Tan SB, Wang GZ, Yip AW, Egermark M, Yeung W, Lee VV, Chan MY, Kumar KS, Tan LW, Vijayakumar S.

Personalization and localization as key expectations of digital health intervention in women pre-to post-pregnancy.

Lee VV, Vijayakumar S, Ng WY, Lau NY, Leong QY, Ooi DS, Su LL, Lee YS, Chan SY, Blasiak A, Ho D.

Artificial intelligence education: an evidence-based medicine approach for consumers, translators, and developers.

Ng FY, Thirunavukarasu AJ, Cheng H, Tan TF, Gutierrez L, Lan Y, Ong JC, Chong YS, Ngiam KY, Ho D, Wong TY.

Economic Evaluation Associated With Clinical-Grade Mobile App–Based Digital Therapeutic Interventions: Systematic Review.

Sapanel Y, Tadeo X, Brenna CT, Remus A, Koerber F, Cloutier LM, Tremblay G, Blasiak A, Hardesty CL, Yoong J, Ho D.

Deep learning and drug discovery for healthy aging.

Wang P, and Ho D.

A Digital Peer Support Platform to Translate Online Peer Support for Emerging Adult Mental Well-being: Randomized Controlled Trial

Yeo G, Loo G, Oon M, Pang R, Ho D.

The IDentif. AI-x pandemic readiness platform: Rapid prioritization of optimized COVID-19 combination therapy regimens.

Blasiak A, Truong AT, Remus A, Hooi L, Seah SG, Wang P, Chye DH, Lim AP, Ng KT, Teo ST, Tan YJ.

IDentif.AI-Omicron: Harnessing an AI-Derived and Disease-Agnostic Platform to Pinpoint Combinatorial Therapies for Clinically Actionable Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Intervention

Blasiak A, Truong AT, Wang P, Hooi L, Chye DH, Tan SB, You K, Remus A, Allen DM, Chai LY, Chan CE.

PRECISE CURATE. AI: A prospective feasibility trial to dynamically modulate personalized chemotherapy dose with artificial intelligence

Blasiak A, Truong A, Tan WJ, Kumar KS, Tan SB, Teo CB, Tan BK, Tadeo X, Tan HL, Chee CE, Yong WP.

Blockchain applications in health care for COVID-19 and beyond: a systematic review

Ng WY, Tan TE, Movva PV, Fang AH, Yeo KK, Ho D, San Foo FS, Xiao Z, Sun K, Wong TY, Sia AT.

Artificial intelligence in cancer therapy

Ho D.

Modulating BET Bromodomain Inhibitor ZEN-3694 and Enzalutamide Combination Dosing in a Metastatic Prostate Cancer Patient Using CURATE.AI, an Artificial Intelligence Platform

Pantuck AJ, Lee DK, Kee T, Wang P, Lakhotia S, Silverman MH, Mathis C, Drakaki A, Belldegrun AS, Ho CM, Ho D.

Individualizing liver transplant immunosuppression using a phenotypic personalized medicine platform

Zarrinpar A, Lee DK, Silva A, Datta N, Kee T, Eriksen C, Weigle K, Agopian V, Kaldas F, Farmer D, Wang SE.