I chose to pursue a PhD because I was interested in interrogating the ‘how(s)’ and ‘why(s)’ instead of simply the ‘what’.

I chose to pursue my graduate studies in NUS because I wanted to remain close to my pillars of support (i.e., my loved ones and close friends) during this exceptionally challenging point in my life. Additionally, I managed to secure a rather nice scholarship (i.e., the NUS President’s Graduate Fellowship) which offered a very competitive stipend.

Compared to my undergraduate experience, grad school is a lot less structured and offers plenty of academic freedom – which is especially liberating and exciting! Additionally, it is also when you start to gain depth – and become an expert in your niche area of research – instead of merely breadth.

My research revolves around a family of enzymes known as the cytochrome P450s. While these enzymes are known to play an important role in the metabolism of drugs which in turn facilitates its elimination from the body, recent evidence has shown that they may inadvertently metabolically activate (or bioactivate) drugs to chemically reactive, potentially toxic species which can engender idiosyncratic drug-induced liver injury or precipitate drug-drug interactions due to a unique irreversible form of time-dependent inhibition known as mechanism-based inactivation. I am particularly interested in unravelling the biochemical basis and pharmacokinetic implications of such bioactivation and identifying prospective medicinal chemistry strategies which can attenuate reactive metabolite formation to circumvent these deleterious endpoints.

To date, I have already published more than 10 papers on subject of cytochrome P450-mediated metabolic activation. In particular, most of my work is focused on a new class of anticancer drugs known as the fibroblast growth factor receptor inhibitors (FGFR inhibitors). I hope that my work on the FGFR inhibitors would drive development of newer and safer FGFR inhibitors with lower propensities to be undergo metabolic activation to labile intermediates by the cytochrome P450 enzyme system.

Most recently in September, I was invited to give a podium presentation at the most esteemed conference (i.e., ISSX/MDO 2022) in my area of research (i.e., drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics). The conference was held in Seattle, WA and featured more than 200 entries and over 300 attendees from both academia and pharmaceutical industry. It was absolutely surreal to be standing on stage and be delivering a talk to experts in the field – I’m also glad that our lab’s research efforts was acknowledged when I managed to clinch the third place in the Best Poster Award.

The friends (both locally and internationally) I made along the way are the best and most memorable part of grad school.

Getting the opportunity to represent the Faculty of Science graduate student body to share my experience with prospective students at the Virtual Open House.

I think everyone’s challenge is different and quite personal. For me, it’s coming to terms with the reality that grad school is quite a lonely journey (as compared to undergraduate studies or working life). What helped was speaking to a therapist to deconvolute and disentangle negative thought patterns and finding opportunities in the lab to work to my strengths (i.e., finding opportunities to mentor undergraduate students in the lab).

It was at the outset of my grad school experience, I was deciding between two prospective PIs’ lab to join. Ultimately, I made the decision to go with my gut – to join the lab which didn’t fully appeal to me in terms of research (at that point of time) but whose mentor’s mentoring style was more aligned with me. Fast forward three and a half years and it was the single best decision I’ve made in a while.