Principal Investigator
Dean Ho, Ph.D. (Director, N.1 Labs @NUS)
Contact: biedh AT nus.edu.sg
Dr Dean Ho is currently Provost’s Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Pharmacology, Director of the Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology (SINAPSE), and member of the Biomedical Institute for Global Health Research and Technology (BIGHEART) at the National University of Singapore.
Dr Ho and collaborators successfully developed and validated CURATE.AI, a powerful artificial intelligence technology platform based on the field of Phenotypic Personalized Medicine (PPM) to optimize clinical efficacy and safety for several combination therapy indications. He co-led the first in-human trial to personalize and optimize combination therapy for the entire duration of care, an unprecedented achievement. Specifically, his team partnered with leading surgeons to dynamically administer immunosuppressive therapies to prevent liver transplant rejection using CURATE.AI. CURATE.AI-treated patients dramatically outperformed control arm patients across every metric of comparison and were discharged nearly one month earlier compared to control patients (Science Translational Medicine, 2016). He also pioneered the development of nanodiamond platforms for the marked enhancement of efficacy and safety of drug delivery and imaging (Science Translational Medicine, 2011, 2013). Recently, Dr Ho initiated a first in-human clinical trial to validate a nanodiamond-biomaterial device for wound healing applications. Currently, Dr Ho is co-leading multiple oncologic combination therapy studies to dynamically modulate multi-drug regimens with CURATE.AI. These trials have resulted in completely halted disease progression and durable patient responses that far outperformed standard of care approaches.
Dr Ho has appeared on the National Geographic Channel Program “Known Universe” to discuss his discoveries in nanodiamond drug delivery and imaging. His discoveries have been featured on CNN, The Economist, Forbes, Washington Post, NPR and other international news outlets. Dr Ho has served as the President of the Board of Directors of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS), a 26,000+ member global drug development organization comprised of senior executives from the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors, as well as academic visionaries.
Dr Ho was recently the first NUS academic to be elected to the US National Academy of Inventors (NAI). He is a recipient of the Fulbright Core US Scholar fellowship. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening. He is also a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Award, V Foundation for Cancer Research V Scholar Award, IADR William J. Gies Award, IADR Young Investigator Award, and Distinguished Young Alumnus award of the UCLA School of Engineering. Dr Ho is a co-founder of KYAN Therapeutics, and has previously advised venture funds and companies and in the areas of AI, digital medicine, and nanomedicine, among others.
Current Team Members
Theodore Kee: Head of Clinical Trials, CURATOR
Peter Wang: Research Intern, CURATOR
Jordan Chong: Research Engineer, Head of AID.One
FYP: Biomedical Engineering
Bjorn Betzler
Collaborators
Edward Chow, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore and Department of Pharmacology, National University of Singapore)
Masturah Bte Mohd Abdul Rashid, NUS
Nurrul Lissa Binti Abdullah, NUS
Tan Boon Toh, NUS
Ali Zarrinpar, M.D., Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Surgery, University of Florida)
Alumni
Dr. Houjin Huang
Dr. Erik Pierstorff
Dr. Dong-Keun Lee
Dr. Xue-Qing Zhang
Dr. Robert Lam
Dr. Sue Vin Kim
Dr. A. Nerisa Limansubroto
Prof. Ho-Joong Kim
Dr. Kangyi Zhang
Mark Chen
Albert Yen
Erik Robinson
Rafael Shimkunas
Han Man
Desiree Hsiou, UCLA
Darron Miya, UCLA
Michael Trieu, UCLA
Brian Wu, UCLA
Peter Wang, UCLA
Dr. Laura Moore, Northwestern and UCSF
...and countless other team members that made this journey possible.
Acknowledgements
Funding to the teams of Dr. Ho and Dr. Chow:
The V Foundation for Cancer Research
National Cancer Institute
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences/National Institutes of Health
National Science Foundation
American Chemical Society
Wallace H. Coulter Foundation
Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening
Beckman Coulter Life Sciences
American Academy of Implant Dentistry Foundation (AAID/AAIDF)
National Medical Research Council, Singapore
National Research Foundation, Singapore