University of Nottingham Malaysia
Faculty of Science and Engineering
     
  
 

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Wan Yong Ho

Associate Professor,

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Biography

Prior to her joining the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus as an assistant professor, Wan Yong pursued her PhD studies in Universiti Putra Malaysia, where she also received her first degree in Biotechnology. She worked on the discovery of cytotoxic effect of herbal extract against breast cancer cells for her PhD and has initiated the study of herb-drug interaction against 3D spheroid cultures of breast cancer therefrom. At UNMC, apart from continuing the exploration of antineoplastic potential of various natural products, she extended her research focus in understanding the regulation of genes and microRNAs in breast cancer stem cells.

Teaching Summary

Wan Yong is an enthusiastic teacher who loves to share her knowledge and experience with students. She is teaching topics in the areas of cancer and molecular biology where her research is focused… read more

Research Summary

Wan Yong's primary research interest resides in cancer stem cell (CSC) regulation in breast cancer cell lines. At present, Wan Yong is studying the role of mRNAs and microRNAs in the modulation of… read more

Selected Publications

Wan Yong is an enthusiastic teacher who loves to share her knowledge and experience with students. She is teaching topics in the areas of cancer and molecular biology where her research is focused in. As a research academic, she hopes to inspire students to develop their skills to become lifelong learners and scientist by creating an engaging and challenging environment for science learning.

Wan Yong is currently the module convener for Structure, Function & Analysis of Proteins and Cancer Biology.

She also contributes to the teaching of other modules including Structure, Function & Analysis of Genes; Core Skills in Biomedical Sciences; Human Physiology; Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics; Approaches to Biomedical Research; Concepts of Pharmacogenetics as well as research supervision under the Biomedical Sciences Final Year Research Project module.

Current Research

Wan Yong's primary research interest resides in cancer stem cell (CSC) regulation in breast cancer cell lines. At present, Wan Yong is studying the role of mRNAs and microRNAs in the modulation of breast CSCs via a few models including monolayer culture, multicellular tumour spheroids and drug resistant breast cancer cells.

Her current research involves cellular characterisation as well as the use of sequencing technology and bionformatics analyses for identification of novel biomarkers.

Wan Yong is also passionate in exploring anti-cancer properties of various natural products and their derivatives. Apart from screening the crude plant extracts for their anti-neoplastic activities, she also hopes to identify the important and non-toxic bio-active components that could be potentially developed into cancer cure in the future.

Her other interests include studying of herbal, food and agricultural products for their phytochemical content and exploring their potent activities such as antioxidant, immunomodulation, anti-inflammation, liver protection activities, whitening effects etc.

Past Research

Wan Yong worked on the discovery of cytotoxic effect of natural product against cancer cells during her PhD studies. Her research project focused mainly on the interaction of herb (Elephantopus scaber) and drug in breast cancer cells. Wan Yong also developed a method for cultivating three dimensional muticellular tumour spheroids model which was then applied in cytotoxic screening of herb-drug treatment on spheroids generated from the breast cancer MCF-7 and other cancer cell lines.

Part of her past research also involves study on the regulation of cancer stem cells in drug resistant breast cancer and she received the 2010 Malaysian Toray Science Foundation Research Award for completing the sub-project from her PhD study.

Faculty of Science and Engineering

University of Nottingham Malaysia
Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih
Selangor Darul Ehsan
Malaysia

telephone: +6 (03) 8924 8000
fax: +6 (03) 8924 8001

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