Our Work

Rethinking Approaches

Over the past century, researchers from all over the world have made consistent progress in the fight against cancer. Much of this research has been funded by charity and government research grants. That money has supported some of the most important scientific work in cancer, translating into new medications and other therapies, along with information on how to prevent the disease. Unfortunately, only 5% of research has been on Asians – which might mean that Asians are being left behind in the fight against cancer.

Preventing
Cancer

Early
Detection

Treating
Cancers

Preventing Cancer

Preventing Cancer

Previously thought to only affect high-income earners, we now know that cancer is shifting to be a global disease with incidence rising rapidly in low and middle income countries.
Up to 50% of cancers are preventable. Unfortunately, while the majority of lung and skin cancers are preventable by avoiding smoking and sun exposure respectively, less is known about preventing common cancers like breast and prostate cancers. Developing new ways of preventing cancers could save lives and help our future generations.
How We've Made a Difference
  1. Established the largest cohort of breast cancer patients and health controls, where >8,000 women have contributed to a study to uncover the links between diet, lifestyle, and genetic factors with breast cancer risk in Malaysians.
  2. Established Malaysia’s first cancer prevention trial, testing the effect of drinking 2 glasses of soy a day on risk of developing breast cancer.
  3. Identified potential ways of stimulating patients’ immune systems so that their own immune system can help prevent pre-cancerous growths from transforming into cancers.
  1. Our scientists are working with researchers at the Malaysian Palm Oil Board to evaluate the impact of anti-oxidants from palm oil on the risk of breast cancer in Asian women.
  2. Our scientists are working with researchers at the University of Liverpool in developing a vaccine for the prevention and treatment of oral and nasopharyngeal cancers.
Early Detection

Early Detection

Early detection of cancer improves the chances of a cure, but this is not without controversy.
For some cancers (particularly breast and prostate cancer), screening can lead to the diagnosis of slowly growing non-life threatening cancers, leading to overdiagnosis and overtreatment of patients.
Screening can also be expensive, and in most Asian countries, there is not enough money in the public purse to ensure everyone receives screening.
That’s why we are doing everything we can to focus on developing ways to improve screening at an affordable cost.
How We've Made a Difference
  1. Conducted research that showed 1 in 20 Malaysians develop breast cancer due to inheriting the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene. This information played an important role in the development of specialised clinics to help families with inherited variants to manage their risk and prevent cancer. Empowered by the knowledge of their high risk to cancer, individuals can undergo preventative surgery or intensify screening for early detection. Find out more about our Asian Risk Calculator (ARiCa) here and find out more about genetic counselling here.
  2. Worked with the Ministry of Health and other partners to show that a mobile phone app is feasible in the early detection of oral cancer. Find out more about the MeMoSA here and here.
  1. Now that we have developed an accurate method for determining an Asian woman’s risk of developing breast cancer, we are collaborating with international experts at the University of Cambridge in carrying out implementation studies to determine how to roll out these tools to benefit Asians, particularly Malaysians who have difficulty accessing breast cancer screening. These tests could aid in spotting people at high risk from these cancers; in the future, they could be offered tailored screening or prevention advice.
  2. We are also working with Ministry of Health and community partners in developing effective methods to enabling greater awareness of the signs and symptoms of breast cancer, through our community patient navigation programme.
  3. We are working with the Ministry of Health to investigate whether our AI-enabled mobile phone app (MeMoSA) can aid in identifying people with suspicious growths in their mouths that could develop into oral cancer if they aren’t treated early. Our researchers are helping to tackle the barriers of screening, particularly in rural populations where people may not be aware of the signs and symptoms of cancer.

If you need more information about the signs and symptoms of cancer, please download our “Be Frank” booklet:

Be Frank Women Booklet

Be Frank Men Booklet

Treating Cancers

Treating Cancers

PRECISION MEDICINE
Today, there have been major advances in cancer treatment because of our understanding of what genetic changes cause cancers to happen (and which treatments can target these genetic changes and kill cancer cells). Such an understanding of genomics has played an important part in creating more effective therapies for cancer, but unfortunately, there is little done in genomics of Asian cancers. Our study on genomics of breast cancer in Asian women, the largest study of its kind, is being used as the basis to develop more effective treatment options.
 
DRUG REPURPOSING
The unfortunate reality is that developing new drugs from scratch is too costly and risky — which is why we look to repurpose drugs. We hope to dedicate ourselves to drug discovery one day. In the meantime, drug repurposing allows us to shorten the time and cost it takes to bring these drugs to the patients who need them.
How We've Made a Difference
  1. We found that a genetic variant that is found in 60% of Asians (and only 15% of Caucasians and <5% of Africans) is associated with breast cancers that have activated immune systems and recently completed a clinical trial testing whether Asian patients with this genetic variant may be treated with methods that harnesses the patient’s own immune system to target cancer cells.
  2. We have also developed a new method to identify breast cancer patients whose tumours are BRCA-like, even though the patients do not have the BRCA gene variant and are conducting a clinical trial testing whether Asian patients with aggressive breast cancer may be treated with newer therapies targeting the BRCA-like features.
  3. Developed a cancer vaccine that is able to control tumour growth by up to 97% and licensed this to a biopharmaceutical company for human clinical trials.
  4. Developed a collaboration with Ministry of Health and 9 hospitals in Malaysia to test the effectiveness of lower (and more affordable) doses of immunotherapy for treatment of lung cancers.
  1. We are working on turning the above discoveries into new or repurposed treatments for patients.

“Thanks to being alerted to the risk my family history posed, my cancer was picked up at an early stage, and I’m still alive to this day.”

- Puan Nor, cancer survivor

“Thanks to being alerted to the risk my family history posed, my cancer was picked up at an early stage, and I’m still alive to this day.”

- Puan Nor, cancer survivor