User:EukaryoticPerson/Teo Soo Hwang

Teo Soo Hwang OBE FASc is a Malaysian cancer researcher. She was the founding chief executive officer and is now the chief scientific officer of Cancer Research Malaysia. Teo is an adjunct professor at the University Malaya Medical Centre within the Faculty of Medicine.

Early life and education
Teo grew up in Petaling Jaya, a city located in Selangor, Malaysia. Her parents encouraged her to excel in whichever endeavors she wished to pursue and to live meaningfully by improving the lives of her community. As a child, Teo was a good student, but never aspired to be a top researcher in her field. She would have been content with becoming a good wife instead of building a career. Although her older brother and younger sister decided to become doctors, Teo chose to follow a different path when she received an ASEAN scholarship to attend secondary school and junior college at Raffles Junior College in Singapore. At the age of 19, she earned a scholarship from the Sime Darby Foundation to study natural sciences at the University of Cambridge, from which she obtained a First Class Honours Degree in biochemistry in 1992. Teo furthered her biochemistry education at the University of Cambridge and completed her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1996.

Career and research
After receiving her PhD, Teo conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge and shifted her focus onto cancer research. She became a member of the Stephen Jackson Laboratory and helped identify new genes involved in cancer.

Cancer Research Malaysia
In January 2001, the Cancer Research Initiative Foundation (CARIF) laboratory was established at the Subang Jaya Medical Centre.

In 2000, Teo founded Cancer Research Malaysia, Malaysia's first and only independent and non-profit cancer research organization.

In 2018, Cancer Research Malaysia declared April 2 as World Reverse Cancer Day to promote awareness about the role of research in reversing cancer. Its marked date was chosen because the numerical date of April 2 (or 4/2) is the reverse of February 4 (or 2/4), the date of World Cancer Day observed by the United Nations.

Publications

 * Wen WX, Allen J, Lai KN, ..., Teo SH. Inherited mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 in an unselected multiethnic cohort of Asian patients with breast cancer and healthy controls from Malaysia. J Med Genet. 2018; 55(2): 97-103. doi:10.1136/jmedgenet-2017-104947.



Awards and recognitions

 * Wellcome Trust Collaborative Science Award
 * 2010 - Eisenhower Fellow
 * 2014 - Top Research Scientist of Malaysia Award
 * 2014 - Academy of Sciences Fellow (FASc)
 * 2018 - Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE)
 * 2018 - Knight Companion of the Order of Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah (DSIS)

Video

 * Helping to Reverse Cancer interview of Teo Soo Hwang by PwC Malaysia, 2017
 * Because We Can talk presented by Teo Soo Hwang at TEDxYouth@SKIS on 9 July 2019
 * Dr Teo Soo-Hwang of Cancer Research Malaysia - Asia's Cancer Killer interview of Teo Soo Hwang by Khoo Su Chuang from Do More, February 2020
 * The Future is Female: Ensuring Asians Are Not Left Out From Cancer Research interview of Teo Soo Hwang by Melisa Idris from Astro Awani, September 2020