Firdaus Aziz is a Senior Lecturer and the Deputy Dean of Research and Innovation at the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya. His work centres on medical law, biosafety law, and the legal–ethical dimensions of emerging technologies, including stem cell science, biobanking, gene editing, and precision medicine. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Genetics and Molecular Biology from Universiti Malaya and received the National Science Fellowship to pursue an MA in Biotechnological Law and Ethics at the University of Sheffield. He later completed a DPhil in Public Health at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, specialising in stem cell law and ethics at the Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX). Since 2016, he has contributed to strengthening bioethics capacity in Southeast Asia. As a UNESCO Bioethics Trainer, he has delivered training to academicians teaching bioethics in universities across Indonesia, the Philippines, Fiji, and other parts of the region. He is also a co-investigator for the Wellcome Trust–funded Southeast Asian Bioethics Network and for the NIH Fogarty programme developing Malaysia’s Master’s in Health Research Ethics. Firdaus plays an active role in national and regional governance, serving on Malaysia’s Technical Advisory Committee on Dual-Use Research, the National Sub-Committee for Laboratory Biosafety and Biosecurity, and the National Committee on Ethics of Cell Research and Therapy. He provides expert input to government agencies, including the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, contributing to national policy development such as the Guidelines on Stem Cell and Cell-based Research and Therapy (2024) and Malaysia’s first national biotechnology ethics guidelines (2025). He is also involved in national efforts to reform the criminal justice system, with research and supervisory work that engages issues at the intersection of law, public health, and justice sector governance.

  Rumana Akhter Saifi, MSS, MA, MPH (Epid-Biostatistics), PhD (Demography) Area of Interest: Demography, Implementation Research, Population and Reproductive Health, Epidemiology and Bio-statistics   CAREER SUMMARY: I come with 17 years of experience in research, teaching, and research administration. I am a Faculty at the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine Faculty of Medicine (FOM), Universiti Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. My present teaching portfolio at FOM includes (1) Medical statistics (2) Research Methodology (3) Practicum in Health Research Ethics (4) Qualitative Inquiry In Public Health (5) Ethics, Law, and Health (6) Principles and Methods of Social Epidemiology and (7) Implementation Research. Over the years, I have also been developing and teaching courses on the Philosophy of Health Systems and Health Policy Research, Applied Statistics in Social Research, and Time Series Analysis. I am committed to expanding the local reach of Implementation Science and have been serving as a Faculty Scholar for the Malaysian Implementation Science Training (MIST) program, a collaborative effort of UM and Yale University, US. As the former Head and Associate Head of CERiA: Centre of Excellence for Research in Infectious Diseases and AIDS. Faculty of Medicine (FoM), Universiti Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I have overseen the entire research portfolio of CERiA. CERiA has been the leading Centre in Malaysia conducting HIV and infectious disease-related research in various fields including bio-medical, social-behavioral, clinical, and implementation research. In my role, I have overseen the progress of research projects starting from grant writing to IRB submission, to data collection, to analysis, to dissemination, ensuring efficiency and smooth workflow. Additionally, my responsibilities include review of grant agreement(s) to ensure compliance; review of financial statements; and preparation of financial audit, and program reports. During my time at CERiA, it has been identified as the most productive research centre of the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya that conducts innovative and interdisciplinary research combining epidemiological, biomedical, and socio-behavioral approaches, focusing HIV prevention and treatment in key populations. With an excellent academic background, I started my career with ICDDR, B in Bangladesh. I stood 9th in Secondary and 6th in Higher Secondary Examination in Dhaka Board, Bangladesh. Over time, I specialized in mixed-method research. My major research expertise includes designing and conducting primary research projects, monitoring of outcomes, evaluation of programs, scaling-up interventions, analyzing and interpreting quantitative and qualitative data, designing and conducting large data collection surveys, managing and analyzing large data sets, and data trend analysis. For the last 17 years, my research focus has been on population health and health policy across diversified cultural contexts from cross-border areas of irregular migrants to conservative Muslim rural areas to urban metropolitan to urban slums to hard-to-reach areas; and across various disadvantaged population groups from young adolescents in early marriage to men who have sex with men (MSM) to sex workers to transgender to injection drug users to prisoners to fishermen. Working in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and New Zealand for the last 17 years gave me the opportunity to understand both developing and developed country settings. I’m acting as a faculty member of the Master of Health Research Ethics Program, jointly developed by Berman Institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, US, and the Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Fogarty International Center. I’m acting as a faculty scholar on a Fogarty Science of Implementation Training program jointly developed by Yale School of Public Health and Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, and Universiti Malaya, Malaysia which ultimately aims to create a regional implementation research center hub in Malaysia. My academic background is a blend of Demography, Public Health, Epidemiology, and Social Science. I hold a Doctor of Philosophy in Demography and Masters in (1) Public Health (Epidemiology and Bio-statistics) (2) Population and Reproductive Health Research and (3) Social Science.

In 2017,  after completing my PhD at The University of Sydney, I joined the Pharmacology Department, Universiti Malaya as a senior lecturer. My research interest is in groups of molecules secreted during cellular stress, injury, and inflammation called damage-associated molecular pattern molecules (DAMPs). They have been implicated in the pathogenesis of various inflammatory diseases and cancer. My aim is to better understand their secretory pathway(s) and the mechanism(s) by which they contribute to cancer development and progression, especially in colorectal cancer. I hope that with more profound knowledge in these areas, more future studies will be conducted, paving the way for discovering novel pathways that can be targeted to combat cancer.  In addition to my interest in inflammation and cancer research, I am also passionate about teaching.  I am involved in teaching Pharmacology subjects for various Bachelor degree courses including Dentistry, Nursing, Medicine, and Biomedical Science. I am also the coordinator of Biomedical Science in the Pharmacology department.