Translational
Tumor Engineering
Laboratory
Department of Biomedical Engineering National University of Singapore
The TTE group leverages biomaterials to engineer in vitro and ex vivo tumors for personalized drug testing
Principal Investigator
Eliza FONG, Ph.D.
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Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
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PI, The N.1 Institute for Health
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Associate Investigator, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore
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Ph.D. Thesis Advisor, Integrative Sciences and Engineering Programme (ISEP), NUS Graduate School
National University of Singapore
Email: BIEFLSE@NUS.EDU.SG
EDUCATION
2010-2015
Ph.D. in Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas
2010-2015
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Med-Into-Grad Pre-Doctoral Fellow in Cancer Diagnostics and Therapeutics, Rice University and The University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston,Texas
2005-2009
Bachelor of Engineering in Bioengineering (First Class Honors), National University of Singapore, Singapore
SELECTED AWARDS
L’Oréal Singapore For Women In Science National Fellowship Finalist
National University of Singapore - Early Career Award
Singapore Women's Weekly Great Women of Our Time nominee
Bioscience Research Collaborative, Collaborative Shared Prize
National University of Singapore - Overseas Graduate Scholarship
National Medical Research Council, Open Fund - Young Individual Research Grant
ABOUT ME
While at Rice University and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center as a HHMI Med-into-Grad fellow, I received a highly regarded inter-disciplinary Ph.D. training in biomaterials engineering, cancer biology, clinical medicine and translational research under the guidance of Dr. Antonios Mikos, Dr. Mary Cindy Farach-Carson and Dr. Kendra Woods. Upon my return to Singapore, I pursued my post-doctoral studies with Dr. Hanry Yu at NUS, concurrently establishing both local and international collaborations with clinicians to develop platforms conducive for growing patient tumors.
Through my Translational Tumor Engineering (TTE) program, I hope to change the way cancer patients are currently treated. Most cancer patients do not receive individualized drug treatment regimes. Rather, they receive ‘standard-of-care’ regimens where they are treated with drugs that are known to ‘work’ for a general cohort of patients with the same cancer type. For the past decade, I have invested all of my professional efforts to understand cancer biology and to discern how biomaterials engineering can be leveraged to grow patient tumor tissues outside the body, so that these engineered tumor tissues can be used to better test drugs and identify the best drug regimen for individual patients.