BIOGRAPHY : Dr. Chong Pan Pan is highly qualified with B.Sc. (Hons) in Microbiology (2001), M.Sc. in Biochemistry (2004) and completed her Ph.D. in Tissue Engineering (2013). After that, she worked as a post-doctoral research fellow (2013-2016) and was later inducted as a senior lecturer (2016-present) at the National Orthopaedic Centre of Excellence in Research and Learning (NOCERAL), Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya (UM), Malaysia. Additionally, she is in charge of setting up the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Laboratory in NOCERAL. She has also been put in charge of the newly provided clinical service using platelet-derived extracellular vesicles (P-EVs) to treat lateral epicondylitis, plantar fasciitis, osteochondral defect, delayed union, knee osteoarthritis, etc. The P-EVs service is provided in the University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) and the University Malaya Specialist Centre (UMSC). Her research interest involves the current and innovative area of tissue engineering and manipulating adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for future use as biological therapies for poorly regenerating tissues. Her work focuses on driving the adult MSCs from bone marrow, peripheral blood, and adipose tissue along chondrogenic lineages for later transplantation to replace worn-out joint cartilage in patients suffering from joint disorders, including trauma or osteoarthritis. To attest to her work, Dr. Chong has published in several high-quality (Q1/high impact factor) peer-reviewed journals and presented her works extensively and globally at numerous international conferences. At that time, she also won several awards, including top prizes at the regional level, such as the Young Investigator Awards, Young Investigator Best Paper Award, L’Oréal Malaysia for Women in Science, Best Poster/Oral Presentations and travel fellowships, etc. In addition, she has participated in several biotechnology exhibitions and business idea competitions. Furthermore, she won many innovation awards for her work on MSCs and P-EVs as biological therapies for tissue regenerations. She has also developed intellectual property related to the novel work, which has been successfully patented.  

Marniza Saad is a Consultant Clinical Oncologist at the Department of Clinical Oncology, University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, since 2006. She also holds the Associate Professor post at the Faculty of Medicine, University Malaya (UM) Kuala Lumpur. She obtained her Medical Degree from University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff, United Kingdom in 1997. She completed her general medical training within the South Wales Medical Rotation in 2000. In 2001 she joined UM as a trainee lecturer in Oncology. She pursued her formal training as clinical oncologist at the Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff, UK from 2002 to 2006 and was awarded the Fellowship of Royal College of Radiologists (Clinical Oncology) in 2006. She is now the supervisor and internal examiner for the Master of Clinical Oncology programme in UM since May 2006. Working within the department Education Committee, she has deep passion for education and training of future oncologists in Malaysia. She was the Head of Department of Clinical Oncology UMMC from 2013 to 2015. During this time she was overseeing the development of Stereotactic Radiosurgery/Radiotherapy (SRS/SRT) and Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) with the designated expert teams, until successful initiation of the services in UMMC in May and September 2015, respectively. She is currently in the UMMC Intra-Operative Radiotherapy Working Group to introduce the service in UMMC in the near future. She is an Exco Committee member for Malaysia Oncological Society since 2013. She is a member of College of Radiology Academy of Medicine Malaysia and European Society for Medical Oncology. Her areas of special interest include genitourinary cancer, sarcoma, breast and gastrointestinal cancers. She is the principle investigator for several international clinical trials mainly in urological cancers and regularly speaks in the areas of her interest at both local and international conferences. 

Prof Dr Siti Nursheena is a parasitologist in the Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science. Her expert area is in the field of mammalian helminthology and molecular parasitology to which she obtained her PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. Her research interests covers host-parasite interactions and epidemiology of a wide range of zoonotic parasites from protozoans, helminth and ectoparasites especially from stray animals, rodents and more recently human. Presently, she is the team leader for an epidemiological investigation into the incidence of parasitic infections among vulnerable community particularly among migrant workers, refugees and the urban poor. Dr Sheena also actively contributes to the Malaysian Society of Parasitology and Tropical Medicine, and was the vice president in 2016-2018 and president in 2018-2020. She contributes her time also on  2 editorial boards; the Tropical Biomedicine (Q3) as chief-in-editor and the editorial board member for Parasitology (Q1).