Prof Dr Stephen Ponnampalam

DR STEPHEN PONNAMPALAM is currently an assistant professor of pathology at the UCSI Medical School and Head of Laboratory Services at UCSI Hospital. He is both a medical doctor and a research scientist having graduated with the Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from University College London (UCL) and the PhD degree from the United States. He has vast experience in research and clinical medicine. His areas of research focus on gene regulation both in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms and in the development of various biomarkers for the early detection of cancers such as lung, breast, colorectal and nasopharyngeal carcinoma amongst others. He has published numerous journal articles and his work has been presented in conferences and symposiums all over the world including USA, Sweden, Germany, Italy and Japan.

He has spoken at Harvard University, MIT, the Cleveland Clinic and the Houston Medical Centre. Currently at UCSI, he is working on the detection of circulating tumour cells (CTC) and the use of mesenchymal stem cells, natural killer (NK) cells and CAR-T therapy for both solid and haematopoietic cancers and other diseases in collaboration with local stem cell companies. He also collaborates with researchers from other institutions such as Monash Malaysia in the area of gene regulation and transcriptomic analysis. This includes the development of early biomarkers for the detection of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) and a mouse model to study this disease. In addition, Dr Ponnampalam is also studying the role of several naturally occurring compounds to treat GBM