PROF. DATUK DR SITI ZAWIAH BINTI OMAR Emeritus Professor

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.

Ts. Dr. Siow-Wee Chang is a senior lecturer in the Bioinformatics Programme at the Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. She earned her Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence (AI) from Universiti Malaya. To date, she has published over 40 papers in reputable journals and conference proceedings at both local and international levels. Her research spans artificial intelligence (AI), data science, bioinformatics, and medical informatics, with a strong interdisciplinary approach that bridges life sciences, medicine, and computer science. She applies AI to advance biomedical research, focusing on disease diagnosis & prognosis, biomarker discovery, and drug discovery & repurposing. Her studies integrate AI-driven methods, multi-omics data integration, gene expression analysis, and spatial transcriptomics to identify potential disease biomarkers and therapeutic candidates. She also applies computational drug screening, molecular docking, and AI-driven predictive modeling to accelerate pharmaceutical research.  Beyond biomedical research, Siow-Wee Chang applies machine learning and deep learning in agricultural studies, particularly in plant species identification and crop disease detection. Her works focus on uncovering patterns in crop data and analyzing their relationships, contributing to advancements in precision agriculture, plant health monitoring, and data-driven farming solutions.