Chief Executive Officer of Monash University Malaysia and the Pro-Vice Chancellor and President (Malaysia) of Monash University Australia ...She is a world-renowned expert on infectious diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS and holds prestigious advisory positions with the WHO as well as various other global health organizations. Throughout her career, Professor Kamarulzaman has championed practical methods to prevent HIV among vulnerable populations, established Malaysia's leading HIV research center, and advocated for harm reduction policies and public health approaches to drug use and addiction.
Esther Daniel (MEd, PhD)
Honorary Professor in the Medical Education, Research and Development Unit at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya (UM). ...She played a key role in developing and implementing the MOHRE (Master of Health Research Ethics) program within the Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Esther is also affiliated with the UM-WWF-M Living Planet Centre as a research member. She recently completed a nationwide research project on Sustainable Development. Currently, Dr. Esther collaborates with Pertubuhan Pendidikan Pembangunan Lestari Selangor (PPPLS) on another nationwide research project focusing on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) from 2022 to 2023. Her involvement in promoting ESD extends further with her participation in the UNESCO-Chair Project for Education for Sustainable Development (2022-2024). Dr. Esther's expertise is additionally sought as a consultant for the project "Transformational Learning through ESD: Mission 4.7" with the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) at the Jeffrey Sachs Centre, Sunway University (2023-2024).
Jeremy Sugarman (MD, MPH, MA)
Harvey M. Meyerhoff Professor of Bioethics and Medicine; Deputy Director for Medicine of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics (BI). ... He is also a Professor of Medicine and Professor of Health Policy and Management. He is an internationally recognized leader in the field of biomedical ethics with particular expertise in the application of empirical methods and evidence-based standards for the evaluation and analysis of bioethical issues. His contributions to both ethics and policy include his work on the ethics of informed consent, umbilical cord blood banking, stem cell research, international HIV prevention research, global health and research oversight.
Joseph Ali (JD)
Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dept. of International Health and Associate Director for Global Programs, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. ...His ongoing research includes projects that employ conceptual, qualitative and quantitative methods to study ethical, legal and societal issues arising in global mobile and digital health, with a recent focus on mobile phone-based disease risk-factor surveillance. He has also conducted research on informed consent for both face-to-face and remote/digital consent and has contributed to scholarship on evaluating the impact of international bioethics capacity strengthening initiatives. In addition to serving as a MOHRE faculty member, he is the co-investigator of the Johns Hopkins-Fogarty African Bioethics Training Program, which, for nearly two decades, has provided training and supported collaborative institutional partnerships to advance research ethics capacity across several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
Sean Tackett (MD, MPH)
Assistant Professor of Medicine and International Medical Education Director, Division of General Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. ...A general internist with a career focus on improving quality in medical education internationally he currently teaches in the JHU faculty development programs for curriculum development in medical education, has conducted curriculum development consultation and workshops for faculty working in Brazil, China, Malaysia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and Zambia. He has also published scholarship related to international medical school accreditation and web-based and mobile educational technologies, and his research on medical student learning environments has included collaborators from China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Israel, and Brazil. Clinically, he practices hospital medicine and attends on inpatient medical teaching services.
Faculty Members
This programme has an outstanding and dedicated faculty, with strong backgrounds and credentials in the fields of ethics, health, and law.
Julia Patrick Engkasan (MBBS, MMed(Rehabilitation Medicine), PhD)
Head of Medical Humanities and Ethics Unit (MedHEU) and Associate Professor at the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Faculty of Medicine in University of Malaya...She is a rehabilitation physician with special interest in the care & rehabilitation of person with spinal cord injury. Her other areas of research interest include evidence-based medicine, ICF, fragility fracture, cancer rehabilitation, shared decision making and clinical quality management in rehabilitation. She is the current Head of the Medical Humanities and Ethics Unit (MedHEU), in the Faculty of Medicine, UM. She is the chair of the ISPRM-WHO sub-committee and the Education Committee of Cochrana Rehabilitation Field. She sits in the Editorial Board of Spinal Cord Journal.
Sharon Kaur (LLB, MA, PhD)
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Malaya. ...Her postgraduate training was in Medical Law and Medical Ethics and her doctoral thesis addressed the role of research ethics committees in relation to clinical trials involving mentally incapacitated adults. Dr. Kaur teaches courses on medical law and medical ethics for undergraduates as well as graduate students at the Faculty of Law and serves on the UM Research Ethics Committee. She also designed and ran a module on medical ethics for Monash University’s International Study Law Programme in Malaysia, with students from Monash Law School, City University Hong Kong, and Windsor University, Canada. She is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at the National University of Singapore, where among other things she is working on developing learning materials and running training sessions for research ethics committees.
Krisna Veni Balakrishnan (BSc [Hons], MSc)
Manager in the University of Malaya Clinical Investigation Centre (CIC), ...Site Management Organization (SMO) for conduct of clinical trial located in the University Malaya Medical Centre, a premier teaching hospital in Malaysia. CIC has been the country pioneer in organizing Good Clinical Practice (GCP) workshop. She is one of the facilitator for the GCP workshop 5 years consecutively. She also teaches GCP to the Study Coordinators and also Internship Students.
Lim Sin How (BSc, MHSCA, PhD)
Senior Lecturer with the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya. ...He is the lead investigator of social science research at the Center of Excellence for Research in AIDS (CERiA) of University of Malaya. Trained in epidemiology, Dr. Lim’s research interests include social determinants of health disparities among vulnerable populations and developing interventions to reduce the health disparities. His past research has focused on substance use, sexual risk behaviors among men who have sex with men (MSM), barriers of and facilitators to accessing HIV prevention and treatment among MSM.
Umah Rani Kuppusamy (BSc [Hons], PhD)
Head and Professor, Department of Biomedical Science, Faculty of Medicine,...University of Malaya.She is also a member of the Faculty of Medicine Research Integrity Committee. She has been teaching Biochemistry and Clinical Chemistry/Chemical Pathology for more than 22 years. Her research interest revolves around antioxidants and oxidative stress in diseases with predominant focus on the etiology and complications of diabetes and obesity. She is the external assessor of the Biomedical Science programme review and accreditation for several public and private Universities in Malaysia. She has a significant experience in publication and peer-review process.
Rozaida Poh Yuen Ying (BSc, MMedSc, PhD)
Senior Lecturer with the Department of Biomedical Science, Faculty of Medicine, ...University of Malaya. She teaches Laboratory Mathematics, Biochemistry and Chemical Pathology as core courses in the Biomedical Science Program. Her research interests include medical genetics, proteomics and clinical enzymology of human diseases. She was one of the committee for the Faculty of Medicine, UM research integrity workshop that was initiated back in July 2017 which laid the foundation for her current foray into research integrity and responsible conduct in research under the MOHRE banner.
Rumana Akhter Saifi (MSS, MA, MPH, PhD)
Director of CERiA: Centre of Excellence for Research in AIDS serves as a Senior Lecturer at Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya. ...I hold a Doctorate of Philosophy in Demography and Masters in (1) Public Health (Epidemiology and Biostatistics) (2) Population and Reproductive Health Research and (3) Social science. My doctoral work aimed to contribute a better understanding of the complex interplay of migration, risk behaviour and disease pattern among Asian population. I am working as a Senior Lecturer at Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine (FOM), University of Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Also, I’m serving as the Associate Director at The Centre of Excellence for Research in AIDS (CERiA) under FOM, UM. Since its establishment in 2007, CERiA has been the leading centre in Malaysia conducting HIV-related research in various fields including epidemiology, social-behavioural, clinical and basic science. My current research portfolio considers a combination of social and epidemiological approaches for disease prevention, treatment and care.
Mohammad Firdaus Abdul Aziz (BSc, MA, DPhil)
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Malaya....He is a member of the UM Research Ethics Committee (non-clinical) and is a global facilitator for the UNESCO Ethics Teachers Training Course (ETTC). Dr. Firdaus has a molecular genetics background from UM, as well as postgraduate training in law and ethics of emerging technologies (University of Sheffield & Oxford University). His doctoral thesis focused on theory and enforcement of Human Stem Cell Research regulations. He is involved with efforts to establish a UM Research Centre focusing on law and ethics of science and technology to coordinate research on the oversight of nanotechnology, biobanking, cyberspace, and stem cell research.
Mohd Salim Mohamed (BSc (Hons), MPhil, PhD)
Senior Lecturer at the Department of Science and Technology Studies, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya....He received his Ph.D in Biomedical Ethics in 2015. His research is situated in the field of bioethics, with a special focus on biomedical ethics and policy, environmental ethics and sustainability and research ethics. He teaches several courses on ethics for undergraduates and postgraduates such as Ethics and Safety, Ethics of Sustainability, Ethics and Sustainable Policies for Science, Technology and Innovation and Ethics of Knowledge and Profession. He is a member of Asian Bioethics Association (ABA) since 2014.
Azanna Ahmad Kamar (MBBS, MRCPCH, Cert Ped Bioethics)
Associate Professor and Consultant Neonatologist at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya.... Having managed many clinical ethical dilemmas in the NICU, she developed a keen interest in paediatric bioethics and had completed her certificate in Paediatric Bioethics from Children’s Mercy Hospital in affiliation with the University of Missouri, Kansas City, USA. She teaches and discusses topics on bioethics for paediatric postgraduate students. She is interested in shared decisions, impact of innovations, end-of-life issues, technology dependence and sociocultural influences in decision making. Her other interests include Cochrane systematic reviews, ventilation, infant nutrition, infection control and neonatal innovations. She is a past president of the Perinatal Society of Malaysia and is a representative to the Federation of Asia-Oceania Perinatal Societies (FAOPS).
Dr Nishakanthi Gopalan is a Senior Lecturer at the Medical Humanities and Ethics Unit (MedHEU),...a newly established unit within the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya (UM). She is a biotechnologist by training and holds a PhD in research ethics and policy implication particularly looking at stem cell technology. During which time, she published her key findings in several reputable high impact bioethics’ journals. Besides being a lecturer, Dr Nisha is also a Programme Manager for the Master of Health Research Ethics (MOHRE) which is a programme under the collaboration of Faculty of Medicine and the Berman institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University (JHU). She also contributes as a member of the Research Integrity and Ethics Unit (RIEU) supporting the ethics arm for example in the Ethics Consultative Service for the Marginalized Population (ECS- MP). Her research interest includes different aspect of ethics such as bioethics, medical, research and clinical ethics on diverse topics ranging from emerging technologies, health research, and aesthetic medicine.
Chong Lee Ai (MBBS, M(Paeds), Grad Cert Pall Care), Cert Paeds Bioethics)
Senior Lecturer, Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya....Dr.Chong is also a Consultant of the Paediatric Palliative Care Unit, Department of Paediatrics, UM Medical Centre. She worked as a consultant paediatric oncologist at UM Medical Centre before embarking on Palliative Care training. Prior to her current position, she worked at Hospis Malaysia providing palliative care in the community for both adults and children in Kuala Lumpur.
Tan Sik Loo (Bio, M.Sc, PhD)
A senior lecturer in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, UM. ...Her current field of research mainly focused on mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) applications in tendon repair, in in vitro and in vivo models. Apart from MSC, she also embarked on Streptozotocin (STZ)-induced rat model for musculoskeletal diseases (i.e. osteoarthritis and tendon degeneration) related studies, and metabolic syndrome (MetS) related musculoskeletal studies in the tendon, cartilage and muscle. Since 2015, she has been involved in academic programme development for the MOB Master of Medical Science (Regenerative Medicine) programme. She has been appointed as the MOB program coordinator since 2018. Besides teaching in the MOB program, she also teaches the Master of Orthopaedic Surgery candidates on the research module, which includes the ethical conduct in basic/clinical research. Her work in stem cells and tissue engineering has received various local and international research awards, eg. Young Investigator Awards in Molecular Medicine, Best Poster Award in Advance Stem Cell Therapy, International Society of Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) 2009 Travel Award etc. She participated in the 2019 Young-Scientist Network-Academy of Science Malaysia (YSN-ASM) AKEPT Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) workshop jointly organized by the Ministry of Education Malaysia. Soon after participating in the RCR workshop, she becomes one of the members in Science Integrity working group in YSN-ASM and she is also one of the members in Research Integrity Unit (RIU) in FOM, UM.
Phang Kean Chang BSc, MMedSc, MOHRE, PhD)
Dr. Alex is a clinical scientist by profession who earns a Ph.D. in Pathology, ...dual master degrees in Health Research Ethics and Medical Sciences (Pathology), besides holding a bachelor’s degree in Biohealth Science. He is currently serving as the Secretary (Manager) at University Malaya Medical Centre-Medical Research Ethics Committee where his core duties include managing the IRB and assisting in study protocol screening. Dr. Alex received several ethics-related trainings and fellowships under World Health Organization, Department of Bioethics, NIH United States and WCG IRB-New York University Langone Health. He has a great interest in researching the ethical issues surrounds emerging technologies and epidemic ethics as well as the quality improvement of IRB’s services to ensure the protection of human subjects in health research. Last but not least, Dr. Alex has a tremendous interest in medical humanities to shape future medical or healthcare providers who are creative, empathic, and intellectually adaptable. He is appointed as an affiliate member of the Academy Sciences of Malaysia (YSN-ASM) since 2020.
Mohamad Shafiq is a Senior Lecturer in Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine,... Universiti Malaya. He obtained Science (Biotechnology) degree from University of Melbourne, with research stints in Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Royal Children Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. He then completed his PhD in Universiti Malaya and continue pursuing his research interests in childhood oncology and ageing. Over the last 5 years, he received multiple grants for research projects and clinical trials worth more than RM1 million.
Sharifah Zamiah Syed Abdul Kadir (BMBS ClinPharm (Hons), MResCVHD, PhD(CVSc))
Currently in the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya....Dr. Sharifah graduated with an honours degree in Biomedical Science (IIUM) and completed her Masters in Research in Cardiovascular Health and Disease as well as PhD in Medicine, Cardiovascular Science (University of Manchester, UK). A scientist with a keen interest in cardiovascular research, with expertise in microvascular physiology investigation technique, pressure myograph, wire myograph, proteomic studies, cellular life cell imaging and microdissection. She has also been actively involved in training and educating on topics related to medicine, Biotechnology and Biomedicine for undergraduate students and procedural training for postgraduate students.
A senior lecturer in the Department of Pharmaceutical Life Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, UM....He is currently the Head of Clinical Investigation Centre, UMMC. His research areas include pharmacology and mycology (higher fungi). He teaches microbiology, pharmacology of infectious diseases, and research methodology. Dr Phan is currently the council member of the Young Scientists Network (YSN) of Academy of Science Malaysia (ASM). He is very much engaged in the Science Media and Science Integrity working groups in YSN. He is a trainer of Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) module developed by YSN-ASM. He received a Bronze Medal for Innovation in Teaching and Learning Competition (K-Novasi) in 2019, and Silver Award for Learning Improvement and Teaching Enhancement Research in 2018 and 2019. He is also awarded the UCSI Top Researcher Award in 2016.
Oh Li Xian (BSc (Medical Bioscience, PhD (Paediatric Cancer)
Senior Lecturer with the Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya....Oh Lixian is a molecular biologist by training, with a keen interest in cancer biology and molecular genetics of childhood disorders. She completed her double degree of Bachelor of Science (Biotechnology) and Bachelor of Science (Medical Bioscience) at Monash University in 2012 and further her study at PhD level at Universiti Malaya. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya. Lixian’s research experiences mainly involve the utilization of laboratory experimental techniques (DNA/RNA/protein, cellular assay), bioinformatics analysis, public data mining and statistical analysis, to study the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of human diseases. Beside basic science research, her current research work also involves several clinical translational studies and international clinical trials in the area of childhood cancers, cancer survivorship, haematopoietic stem cell transplantation and other paediatric disorders.
Hassan Almoustafa (BPharm, MBe, PhD)
Lecturer at the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine in University Malaya....Before joining UM faculty of Medicine as a PhD student he practiced Community Pharmacy in Syria while obtaining a masters degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Aleppo. He obtained his PhD from Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya in 2021 then he had 1 year as Post Doctoral Research Fellowship. His area of expertise is drug delivery and his research interests are Nanomedicine in cancer treatment particulary polymeric nanoparticle formulations and the industrial scale up of Nanotechnology based medications.
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