Associate Professor Chern Ein Oon and Yi Jer (Richard) Tan.

The inaugural biennial meeting of the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology was particularly rewarding for PhD student Yi Jer (Richard) Tan, whose research poster won him the International Journal of Molecular Sciences prize.

Richard, who is undertaking his studies at the Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine (INFORMM) at Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, where he is supervised by Associate Professor Chern Ein Oon, has been spending most of this year at the Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) conducting research under the co-supervision of our researcher Professor Ricardo Mancera.

Richard’s poster, “Prediction of molecular mechanism of action and drug binding with sirtuin proteins” presented some of his studies into a range of proteins called sirtuins and their role in multiple age-associated cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes and cancer.

Richard has been working on characterising a new drug molecule that can inhibit several of these sirtuins, in particular colo-rectal cancer, using a combination of computational, cell-based and animal-based studies. His findings are very promising as they suggest that this new drug molecules may be effective in treating this and other cancers, particularly when used in combination therapies with other anti-cancer drugs.

Congratulations Richard – we are excited both for your win and what the future holds for your research.