Zihua

When I started to apply for graduate education in 2001, I knew NUS has consistently been considered one of the top academic institutions in the world. After submission of my application, I received a few offers from BU, WashU, NUS, etc. As NUS has more than 10 faculties and schools and attracts lots of international students, these educational and cultural diversities offer students more opportunities to learn from people with different backgrounds and upbringings and to increase innovation and collaboration. In addition, NUS offered me to pursue my graduate study in the field of bioengineering which was such a promising and challenging area. So, I picked NUS.

These two experiences are quite different, in terms of course load, specificity of coursework, leadership & professional development training, etc. I’d like to emphasize the research experience, which is valuable in almost every line of work. By being involved in research projects, you can learn to plan, think critically and logically, seek out options to find answers to your questions, and incorporate those findings into your work. Generally, graduate students with their research projects have access to more advanced tools and systems. Additionally, you will work closely with professors on your projects. Fortunately, I worked with Dr. Caroline Lee as my supervisor during my Ph.D. journey at NUS. And I learned lots from her, published 8 research articles in top journals, and discovered my research interests.

My thesis title:
Identification of potentially functional SNPs at ABC transporters and development of novel assays to genotype these SNPs.
During my Ph.D. studies at NUS, I studied the roles of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in drug response, before when NGS was available. I developed a multi-SNP genotyping protocol based on multiplex PCR. By genotyping >100 SNPs on a total of 500 DNA samples from 5 ethnic groups in a time- and cost-effective manner, I found several SNPs within the ABC drug transporter genes that showed signatures of either positive or negative selection. The functional effects of some of these SNPs have been experimentally confirmed, which indicates that they may account in part for inter-individual and population variation in response to various drugs.

When applying anticancer chemotherapy to patients, functional sequence variations might account, to a certain extent, for inter-individual and population variation, both in terms of tumor response and the incidence and severity of adverse effects. I hope that my scientific findings based on 5 ethnic groups and more than 100 SNPs within the ABC drug transporter genes could present a feasible and efficient strategy to search for functional genetic variations.
My Ph.D. journey also guides me to pursue my current research direction, to find genetic variations for early detection of cancers and minimal residual disease (MRD) monitoring. So far, our achievements are quite promising. Hopefully, these findings could benefit patients very shortly.