Wai Hoe Ng

I am a Malaysian, currently working as a research assistant professor at Westlake University, China. I have been working on the evaluation of mesenchymal stem cells on the effects on aged primary cardiac cells from the mouse, and then transition to the use of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) for the co-differentiation of cardio-pulmonary progenitors. I have a year of industry experience in a biotech company focusing in developing MSCs as the “drug” for treating knee joint pain.

Currently, I am working on determining a new genes set to changing the cell fate of aged adult cells by partial reprogramming techniques. Moving forward, I would like to join industry and make it my career path.

During my PhD, I actively isolating cardiac cells from mice. Although cardiac cells have been shown to be able to regenerate damage heart, our work was trying to investigate if exogenous combination cell therapy would be a better solution. We therefore evaluated human Wharton's jelly derived mesenchymal stem cells on the effect on aged cardiac cells.

Although we did not observe any rejuvenative effect due to short term co-culture, however, it showed additive benefit on cardiac cells' growth kinetics.

I was trained in Carnegie Mellon Unviersity from 2019 to 2021 upon obtaining my PhD. During my postdoc training, I was involved in developing a co-differentiation protocols to differentiate both heart cells and lung alveolar epithelial cells from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) simultaneously in a dish. By determining the various important signaling pathway required for both lineages, I managed to develop a simple, and effective protocol, enabling the co-differentiation of both heart and lung cells in a dish.

Thereafter, I have joined a biotec company, focusing on mesenchymal stem cell (MSCs) in treating knee joint pain in elderly. I got involved in the early discovery in the R&D department, and managed to generate MSC line from hiPSCS. These MSCs were the progenitors of chondrocytes, and they were able to form cartilage-like organoids, enabling the next process development to take part.

I obtained my degree in Bachelor of Health SCiences (biomedicine) in 2011.

I was a PhD candidate from 2014 - 2019. I obtained my PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from University Sains Malaysia.