DR. KHONG TENG KEEN

Khong obtained his Bachelor’s Degree and PhD in Sports Sciences from the University of Malaya. He has been working in exercise physiology labs since 2013,and from 2018 - 2019 he was a senior lecturer in the Department of Sports Sciences, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Tunku Abdul Rahman (TAR) University College, mainly lecturing on exercise physiology subjects as well as some sports psychology and motor control and learning courses. He began his new career, also as a senior lecturer, at his alma mater, University of Malaya, since 2020. He specialises in exercise physiology and exercise testing, particularly laboratory-based cardiovascular fitness (VO2max) test and isokinetic & isometric strength tests. His research field mainly involves usage of nutrition intervention to prevent exercise fatigue in both endurance exercise and muscular force demanding situations. He has also started to delve into works investigating effects of exercise on health conditions such as diabetes and sarcopenia. On the administration end, he is currently the program coordinator for the Master's Degree in Strength and Conditioning.

show more »
DR. LAI MENG YEE

Dr. Lai Meng Yee graduated with Bachelor of Science degree (Microbiology) in 2006 from Universiti Sains Malaysia. She obtained her Master of Biotechnology in 2011 and Doctorate degree in 2018 from Universiti Malaya. She served as post-doc research fellow at the Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine from 2019 to 2024. She is currently serving as a senior lecturer at the same department since July 2024. Dr. Lai’s area of expertise are molecular parasitology, molecular epidemiology and diagnostic kit development. Dr. Lai carries out host parasite interaction study to investigate the relationship between parasites and its’ host cell receptors/ligands. She successful find out the potential host cell binding partner of Toxoplasma gondii during the invasion. Dr. Lai is also interested in exploring the mechanisms of malaria infections and the interactions between infected patients and malaria parasite invasion using a molecular epidemiology approach. She also interested to investigate the distribution of zoonotic malaria parasites, originally transmitted from non-human primates through mosquito bites. Other than that, Dr. Lai also works on the identification and differentiation of human malaria and zoonotic malaria parasites using various molecular techniques, such as real-time PCR analysis, recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) and Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP). By employing these molecular techniques, Dr. Lai has developed numerous diagnostic methods for malaria, SARS-CoV-2, and dengue. These methods and primers had been patented. Dr. Lai’s dedication and hard work have resulted in more than 40 ISI-Cited publications, making substantial contributions to science and technology. Dr Lai also also have been awarded a few times for the innovation in research including Gold, and Medal prizes from Korea Creative Invention Contest, CIC 2017, Cabaran Inovasi  Inklusif 2018 Zon Tengah, World Invention Innovation Contest (WiC) 2018, International Invention Innovation Competition in Canada, iCAN 2022 and Innovasi Kreativiti Teknologi Keusahawanan dan Masyarakat (organized by Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia and Universiti Malaysia Kelantan). To date, she has published more than 40 ISI-cited publications with total citations index of 470 and H-index of 13. Also, she has assisted more than 25 PGs in their research projects. 2 Master and 1 PhD students have completed their study. Recently, she is awarded a research grant from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, to further her zoonotic malaria research. Overall, Dr. Lai’s steadfast dedication to scientific research and innovation has propelled significant progress in disease detection and prevention, highlighting her as an outstanding young scientist and a role model for the scientific community.

show more »
ASSOCIATE PROF. DR. AMER SIDDIQ BIN AMER NORDIN

Dr Amer Siddiq Amer Nordin is an Associate Professor, consultant psychiatrist and smoking cessation specialist from University Malaya. He is the coordinator of the Nicotine Addiction Research Group of UMCAS and is the primary investigator for the Grand Challenge Grant (GC004-15HTM) investigating gaps in upscaling existing smoking cessation services in Malaysia. The training that his team developed, is one of three pathways to be a certified smoking cessation provider. He is a technical and expert advisor to the Ministry of Health for policy documents including the Tobacco Control National Strategic Plan 2015-2020 document and mQuit Services project which is involved in strengthening the "O" of MPOWER. As part of his interest, he is involved with both local and international organization in tobacco control and cessation and is active in communicating his ideas on tobacco control in social, mass and scientific media in Malaysia and abroad. He tweets at @MyNarcc and can be found at http://www.narcc.um.edu.my

show more »

RECENT PUBLICATION

LATEST AWARDED GRANT