Prof Roger Foo Sik Yin

Appointment(s)

Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Professor of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Director, Cardiovascular Research Institute, NUS and NUHCS
Director, Cardiovascular-Metabolic Disease Translational Research Programme, NUHS
Head, NUHS Clinician Scientist Academy
Senior Consultant (Genetics Lead), National University Heart Centre, Singapore
Adjunct Research Director, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR

Inaugural President, International Heart Research Society- Southeast Asia Section
Co-Chair, 2024 Keystone Conference on Cardiovascular Epigenetics
Corresponding lead Principle Investigator: NMRC LCG Project RESET
Corresponding lead PI: MOE Tier 3 M2CardAGE
ATTRaCT Programme Lead, IMCB A*STAR and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Chair, MOH Research Residency (Clinician Scientist Track) Training Panel
ExCo Member, College of Clinician Scientists, Academy of Medicine, Singapore
Member, Singapore Ministry of Health Genetic Testing Advisory Committee
Advisory Board Member, SHAPES Working Group on the Ethics of Gene Modifying Technologies, Singapore
Associate Editor, Physiological Reviews, Journal of the American Physiological Society
Editorial Board member for OPEN HEART, BMJ, London

Degree(s)

Fellowship, Royal College of Physicians (F.R.C.P.), UK (2014)
Completion of Specialist Training (C.C.S.T.), UK (2003)
Doctor of Medicine (M.D.), University of Leicester, UK (2000)
Membership, Royal College of Physicians (M.R.C.P.), UK (1997)
Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (M.B.B.S.), National University of Singapore (1992)

Biography

Upon graduation at the NUS Medical School, Roger undertook his post-graduate clinical training at King College Hospital London and Addenbrooke’s Hospital Cambridge. For his research training, he worked in the labs of the late Professor David de Bono (British Heart Foundation Chair of Cardiology, Leicester), Professor Morris Brown (past president British Hypertension Society, and Professor of Clinical Pharmacology, Cambridge), Professor Martin Bennett (BHF Chair of Cardiovascular Sciences, Cambridge) and Professor Rick Kitsis (The Dr. Gerald and Myra Dorros Chair in Cardiovascular Disease, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NYC). His research projects were funded by both The Wellcome Trust and the British Heart Foundation through fellowships and project grants.

Altogether, Roger trained and worked in Cambridge, UK, for over 20 years at the Clinical Pharmacology Unit and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine (University of Cambridge) and also at the Addenbrooke’s Hospital NHS Trust, before moving his lab to Singapore in 2013. Here, he has established Singapore’s first Cardiac Genetics clinical service, and has since been leading in the Cardiovascular Epigenomics and Molecular Epigenetics Themes for many of the largest Cardiovascular grant awards in the country.

His clinical practice is based at the NUHS National University Heart Centre, and his labs are at the NUS MD6 Centre for Translational Medicine, and A*STAR Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB). Research in the lab makes use of genomic technology to study the cardiac epigenome and hunt for novel Heart Failure mechanisms. Roger enjoys reading scientific, historical and current affairs literature. He keeps as much as possible to a daily swimming regime, and uses WhatsApp and Instagram to keep up with the dizzy lives of his grown-up children who live abroad.

Research Areas/Research Interest

Molecular epigenetics, epigenomics and gene expression control in heart disease.
Inherited Cardiac Conditions. Clinical Genomics for Rare Diseases. Low renin hypertension.

Lab Description

Roger did his postgraduate clinical training with the late Professor David de Bono (British Heart Foundation Chair of Cardiology, Leicester) and then Professor Morris Brown (Clinical Pharmacology, Cambridge, UK) before joining Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NYC with Professor Richard Kitsis. It was at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where Roger delved deep into the molecular mechanisms of heart failure examining regulators of cardiomyocyte apoptosis. Upon returning the Cambridge, Prof Foo, started the Foo-Lab 1.0 at the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, funded by the British Heart Foundation and Wellcome Trust, exploring the mechanisms that regulate gene expression and cardiac epigenomics in Heart Failure.

The Foo-Lab 2.0 was established in Singapore in 2013 at both NUS CVRI and the Genome Institute of Singapore. Since returning to his roots in Singapore, the lab has been exploring Heart Failure and adopting new technologies to explore gene expression and cardiac function. Using clinical samples, in vivo stem and iPSC models Foo Lab applies cutting edge advances in science to better understand cardiac biology and disease. Recently Roger has taken on several leadership roles at NUS and the lab has expanded into more clinical and public health research to tackle the looming heart failure crisis in south-east Asia.

https://www.foo-lab.sg/

Selected Publications

Population Genomics in south east asia captures unexpectedly high carrier frequency for treatable inherited disorders. Genet Med, 2018. July 2.

Bylstra Y, Kuan J, WK Lim, R Foo, S Jamuar.

Following hearts, one cell at a time: recent applications of single-cell RNA sequencing to the understanding of heart disease. Commentary. Nat Commun 2018.

Johnson M, Tan W, Foo RSY

Dissecting chromatin architecture for novel cardiovascular targets. Circulation. 2019. Invited Editorial.

Foo R, Anene-Nzelu CG, Rosa-Garrido M, Vondriska T.

Targeting the highly abundant circular RNA circSlc8a1 in cardiomyocytes attenuates pressure overload induced hypertrophy. Cardiovasc Res. 2019 May 22.

Lim B, Lim B, Aliwarga E, Luu T, Li P, Ng SL, Annadoray L, Sian S, Ackers-Johnson MA, Foo R.

Circles in the heart and cardiovascular system. Cardiovasc Res. 2019 Sep 25. Invited review.

Lim TB, Lavenniah A, Foo RS.

Yin Yang 1 Suppresses Dilated Cardiomyopathy and Cardiac Fibrosis Through Regulation of Bmp7 and Ctgf. Circ Res. 2019 Sep 9.

Tan CY, Wong JX, Chan PS, Tan H, Liao D, Chen W, Tan LW, Ackers-Johnson M, Wakimoto H, Seidman JG, Seidman CE, Lunde IG, Zhu F, Hu Q, Bian JS, Wang JW, Foo RS, Jiang J.

A robust CTCF-based chromatin architecture underpins epigenetic changes in the heart failire stress-gene response. Circulation. 2019 Feb. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA. 118.036726.

Lee DP, Tan WLW, Anene-Nzelu CG, Lee CJM, Li PY, Danh TAL, Chan CX, Tiang Z, Ng SL, Huang X, Efythymios M, Autio MI. Jiang J, Fullwood M, Prabhakar S, Aiden EL, Foo RS-Y.

Adipose circular RNAs exhibit dynamic regulation in obesity and functional role in adipogenesis. Nat Metab. Accepted.

Arcinas C, Tan W, Fang W, Desai T, The D, Degirmenci U, Xu D, Foo R*, Lei S*.

Pharmacological inhibition of DNA methylation attenuates pressure overload induced cardiac hypertrophy in rats. J Mol Cell Cardiol 2018 May 21.

Stenzig J, Schneeberger Y, Löser A, Peters BS, Schaefer A, Zhao RR, Ng SL, Höppner G, Geertz B, Hirt MN, Tan W, Wong E, Reichenspurner H, Foo RS, Eschenhagen T.

Targeting Chondroitin Sulfate Glycosaminoglycans to Treat Cardiac Fibrosis in Pathological Remodeling. Circulation. 2018 Jan 25.

Zhao RR, Ackers-Johnson M, Stenzig J, Chen C, Ding T, Zhou Y, Wang P, Ng SL, Li PY, Teo G, Rudd PM, Fawcett JW, Foo RSY.

Experience of Asian males communicating cardiac genetic risk within the family. J Community Genet. 2018 Jan 8. Doi: 10.1007/212687-017-0352-2 [Epub ahead of print].

Kam S, Bylstra Y, Forrest L, Macciocca I, Foo R.

Single cardiomyocyte nuclear transcriptomes reveal a lincRNA-regulated de-differentiation and cell cycle stress-response in vivo. Nat Commun 2017 Aug 9;8:225

K See, WL.W. Tan, EH Lim, Z Tiang, LT Lee, PYQ. Li, TDA. Luu, M. Ackers-Johnson, R.S. Foo.

A landscape of circular RNA expression in the human heart. Cardiovasc Res. 2017 March;113(3):298-309.

W Tan, B Lim, C Anene-Nzelu, M Ackers-Johnson, K See, Z Tiang, W Chua, T Luu, P Li, AM Richards, DP Lee, R Foo.

The International Human Epigenome Consortium: A blueprint for scientific collaboration and discovery. Cell. 2016 Nov 17;167(5):1145-1149.

Hendrik G Stennenberg, The International Human Epigenome Consortium, Martin Hirst.

M Ackers-Johnson, PY Li, AP Holmes, SM O’Brien, D Pavlovic, R S Foo.

A simplified, Landendorff-free method for concomitant isolation of viable cardiac myocytes and non-myocytes from the adult mouse heart. Circ Res 2016 Sep 30;119(8):909-20.

A genomic and epigenomic comparison of fetal and adult human cardiac fibroblasts reveal novel key transcription factors in adult cardiac fibroblasts. J Am Coll Card Bas Trans Sci. July 2016.

M Jonsson, R Hartman, M Ackers-Johnson, W Tan, B Lim, T A B van Veen, R S Foo.

Incidentalome from Genomic Sequencing: A barrier to personalized medicine? EBioMedicine 2016. Feb 4;5:211-6.

Jamuar S, Kuan JL, Brett M, Tiang Z, Tan W, Lim JY, Kein W, Javed A, Liew WK, Law HY, Tan ES, Lai A, Ng I, Teo YY, Venkatesh B, Reversade B, Tan EC, Foo R.

Experimental heart failure modeled by the cardiomyocyte-specific loss of an epigenome modifier, DNMT3B. J Mol Cell Cardiol. 2015 May;82:174-83.

A. Vujic, E. Robinson, S. Haider, M. Movassagh, A. Ferguson-Smith, R.S. Foo.

Landscape of repetitive element methylation in human heart failure. Genome Biol. 2012 Oct 3;13(10):R90.

S. Haider, L. Cordeddu, A. Vujic, L. Siggens, R.S. Foo.

Distinct epigenomic features in human end-stage failing human hearts. 2011. Circulation. 2011 Nov 29;124(22):2411-22.

M. Movassagh, M-K. Choy, D Knowles, L. Siggens, A. Vujic, T. Down, M. Goddard, M. Bennett, R.S. Foo.

A Meta-Analysis on the Global Prevalence, Risk factors and Screening of Coronary Heart Disease in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. 2022.

Toh, J.Z.K., Pan, X.-H., Tay, P.W.L., Foo, R., et al.

Genetic variation influencing DNA methylation provides insights into molecular mechanisms regulating genomic function. Nature Genetics. 2022.

Hawe, J.S., Wilson, R., Schmid, K.T., Foo, R., et al.

Placebo effect on progression and regression in NASH: Evidence from a meta-analysis.Hepatology. 2022.

Ng, C.H., Xiao, J., Lim, W.H., Foo, R., et al.