Academician Datuk Professor Dr Lai-Meng Looi is Malaysia’s inaugural National Distinguished Professor, positioned at  the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya (UM).  She holds a concurrent appointment as senior consultant histopathologist at the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC).    Professor Looi studied medicine as a Malaysian Federal Scholar at the University of Singapore (1970-1975), where she was a medalist in Pathology and Social Medicine, and won King Edward VII Hall awards for literary works, art forms and poetry.  She trained in Surgical Pathology at UM, Royal Postgraduate Medical School (UK) and Brigham and Woman’s Hospital, Boston, (USA) and defended her research doctorate (on amyloidosis) at UM.  She assumed the Chair of Pathology, UM at the age of 36 years and during her long academic career at UM has served as Department Head, Deputy Dean (Postgraduate), Chair of the Medical Centre Research Committee, representative to the Malaysian Medical Council, Chair of the Medical Advisory Committee of UMMC and UM’s Committee for External Academic Evaluators.  She continues to chair the UMMC-Medical Research Ethics Committee/ Institutional Review Board.  She has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, mainly on amyloidosis, nephropathology and oncopathology, is devoted to promoting a research and ethical culture among researchers, has delivered >500 guest lectures and conducts scientific writing workshops nationally and internationally. Professor Looi is a Foundation Fellow and Academician of