Dr. Lim Sai Kiang

PhD

Research Director, Institute of Medical Biology A*STAR

Dr Sai-Kiang Lim graduated with B.Sc (Hons in Biochemistry) from National University of Singapore in 1985. She did her PhD thesis on the metabolism of thalassemic mRNA under Prof Lynne Maquat (Dept. of Human Genetics, Roswell Park Cancer Institute), and was awarded the Most Meritorious Student Research Award by Sigma Xi Society in 1989, NY State Predoctoral Fellowship (1989-91) and a PhD (Molecular Biology) from SUNY at Buffalo in 1992. In 1992, she started postdoctoral training on erythroid differentiation with Prof Frank Constantini (Dept. of Genetics and Development College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University) first as a Cooley’s Anemia Foundation Research Fellow (1992-94) and then a Leukemia Society of America Special Fellow (1994-96).

After postdoctoral training, she led independent research groups at NUMI, NUS (1996-2001), Genome Institute of Singapore (2002-2007) and then Institute of Medical Biology (2007). Her research focus has always been disease-related with emphasis on the elucidation of the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms in diseases and development of therapies. Her current major research interests are on the synthesis, mechanism of action and therapeutic applications of natural and synthetic nano-size lipid membrane vesicles such as exosomes and exosome-like liposomes, respectively.

She is the Founding President of the Singapore Stem Cell Society, and a Founding Member and serving Secretary for Society for Clinical Research and Translation of Extracellular Vesicles Singapore (SOCRATES).