Summary
Dr. Sek-Shir Cheong is currently a research associate in the Lung Development and Repair group led by Dr Charlotte Dean at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London. She joined Imperial in 2017 after completing a PhD in Molecular Genetics in Professor Alison Hardcastle’s lab in the Department of Ophthalmology at University College London (UCL). Her PhD study aimed to investigate the molecular genetics of developmental eye disorders using next generation sequencing technology, during which she discovered a novel genetic cause of a rare congenital anterior segment dysgenesis and proposed a genetic screening that improved the differential diagnosis of megalocornea and primary congenital glaucoma. Prior to this she graduated from University of Malaya with a First Class Honours degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology, and later completed a Master’s degree with distinction in Genetics of Human Disease at UCL.
Dr Cheong made a transition from ophthalmic genetics to lung regenerative medicine for her current research. Her current interests lie in the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms underlying lung development and repair. Aberrant lung repair is a hallmark of adult lung diseases, including Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). Using ex vivo 3D Precision-Cut Lung Slices (mini-lung) and in vitro cell models, her research is focused on delineating the role of Wnt/Planar Cell Polarity and Retinoic Acid signalling in promoting lung repair following injury. She is also currently developing different novel methods of manipulating gene/mRNA in ex vivo human and mouse 3D lung tissues, which have potential to be extended to other organs/systems. In collaboration with Imperial College London Consultants (ICON), Sek-Shir also consults on the application of PCLS Acid Injury Repair (AIR) model that the lab developed for pre-clinical drug screening to identify potential targets to repair lung injury.
Honours and Awards
Dr Cheong won the Professor E. Balasingam Gold Medal as the best undergraduate student in the Faculty of Biology. She was also awarded the competitive Commonwealth Scholarship to pursue a Master’s degree at UCL. Her 4-year PhD program was joint-funded by Graduate Research Scholarship and Overseas Research Scholarship from UCL. She is currently funded by the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals Charity.
Publications
Journals
Cheong S-S, Luis T, Stewart M, et al. , 2023, TReATS: a novel method for TAT-Cre recombinase mediated floxed Allele modification in ex vivo tissue slices, Disease Models and Mechanisms, Vol:16, ISSN:1754-8403
Dean C, Cheong SS, 2023, Simple Models of Lung Development. In: Magin, C.M. (eds) Engineering Translational Models of Lung Homeostasis and Disease. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Springer, Cham
Dudakova L, Tuft S, Cheong S, et al. , 2021, Novel disease‐causing variants and phenotypic features of X‐linked megalocornea, Acta Ophthalmologica, ISSN:1755-375X
Cheong SS, Akram K, Metellan C, et al. , 2020, The planar polarity component Vangl2 is a key regulator of mechanosignaling, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, Vol:8, ISSN:2296-634X
Dean C, Cheong SS, 2019, On the move: the commander IL-4 leads the cell army in collective migration, American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, Vol:60, ISSN:1044-1549, Pages:377-378