Plenary Speakers

Professor Cheong is the Chief Scientific Officer at Cancer Research Malaysia. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya. Her work aims to improve management and survival of cancer patients through the understanding of the underlying molecular changes, and through the development of novel treatment approaches, focusing on head and neck cancers.  Her work includes the development of immunotherapy and the use CRISPR-Cas9 essential screens to identify novel targets for head and neck cancer. In addition, she also focuses on early detection using innovative strategies including the development of novel mobile health tools such as MeMoSA®, enabling early detection of oral cancer. She has received grants from national and international funding bodies including the Newton-Ungku Omar Fund, Newton Fund Impact Scheme, Global Challenges Research Fund and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation SMART Fund, amongst others. In recognition of her research contributions, she has received several national and international scientific awards, including the President’s Award by the International Association of Oral Maxillofacial Pathologist (IAOP), the 8th Underwriters Laboratories-ASEAN-US Science Prize for Women 2022 and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Medal Lecture.

Wanwipa Vongsangnak received her Ph.D. in Bioscience from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, in 2009. In 2011, she joined Soochow University as an Associate Professor at the Center for Systems Biology. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Kasetsart University, and serves as the Acting Dean of Kasetsart University International College. Prof. Vongsangnak has published over one hundred peer-reviewed articles. She was awarded the 2020 Taguchi Prize for Outstanding Research Achievements by a Young Scientist in the Field of Biotechnology by the Thai Society for Biotechnology. Additionally, she is a recipient of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award, granted by L’Oréal Thailand. She has also been recognized under the Talented Young Scientist Program in China. Her research interests include bioinformatics and systems biology, with applications in medical and industrial contexts, aiming to support sustainable development goals.

Kyo Bin Kang is an Associate Professor of Natural Product Chemistry at the College of Pharmacy, Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, Korea. He received his BSc (2010) and MSc (2012) in Pharmacy from Seoul National University. In 2016, he obtained his PhD in pharmacognosy under the guidance of the late Prof. Sang Hyun Sung at the same university, and stayed in the same lab for 2 years as a postdoctoral researcher. During his PhD and first postdoc, we mainly worked on bioactive compound discovery from medicinal plants, aided by LC-MS-based chemical profiling. Kyo Bin joined Pieter Dorrestein’s lab at UC San Diego as a postdoc in March 2018, and there he became more familiar with computational mass spectrometry. In September 2018, he founded his own laboratory where he is applying MS- and NMR-based metabolomics workflows to reveal the complex chemical diversity of plant and microbial metabolism. The information on the chemical spaces produced by plants and microorganisms helps his lab to answer various 5W1H questions on natural products. His lab not only discovers bioactive compounds but also investigates fundamental biological phenomena mediated by natural products. For example, natural products-mediated chemical interactions between microorganisms, plant-insect interactions, phytochemical biotransformation by wood-decaying fungi, and xenobiotic biotransformation by human symbiotic bacteria are major research projects ongoing in his lab.

Varodom Charoensawan is an Associate Professor at Mahidol University, Thailand. His research group focuses on utilising Systems Biology approaches, including high-throughput molecular techniques and computational analyses, to decipher “regulatory maps” of gene expression in two main contexts: 1) plant adaptation to climate change 2) molecular mechanisms of diseases and precision medicine. Charoensawan and his collaborators have started the first single-cell biology facility in Thailand and have been awarded multiple international grants, including the Newton Funds from the UK and Chan Zuckerberg Initiatives from the US, to implement the technology to uncover the molecular mechanisms of diseases, including cancers, thalassemia, dengue fever, autoimmunity and COVID-19.

Dr. Kang-Mo Ku is an Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Biotechnology at Korea University. He received his Ph.D. in Crop Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013, following an M.S. and B.S. in Horticulture and Agricultural Science, respectively, from Kyungpook National University in South Korea. Dr. Ku’s research focuses on improving the quality, safety, and health promoting properties of horticultural crops through metabolomics, postharvest physiology, and controlled cultivation systems. He has over 90 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals such as Postharvest Biology and Technology, Food Chemistry, and Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. His work integrates advanced omics tools—including LC-MS, GC-MS, and multivariate analysis—to understand biochemical changes in crops under pre- and postharvest conditions. He began his academic career as a postdoctoral associate at the University of Illinois, where he investigated glucosinolate biosynthesis in broccoli and other Brassica vegetables. He then held faculty positions at West Virginia University and Chonnam National University before joining Korea University in 2022. His recent research includes VOC-based freshness prediction, glucosinolate-derived bioactive compound profiling, and the application of agrivoltaics in sustainable crop production. Dr. Ku was awarded the 2025 Minister’s Award from the Ministry of Science and ICT and was selected among the “2024 Korea’s Top 100 National R&D Achievements.” He also serves as an associate editor for Frontiers in Plant Science and the Korean Journal of Plant Resources, and as a board member of the Korean Society for Horticultural Science. Through international collaborations, education programs, and industrial partnerships, Dr. Ku aims to bridge fundamental plant science with practical applications in agriculture, food, and health sectors.

Professor Dr. Vikneswaran is the Director of the Centre for Drug Research, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), which is a designated Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, Higher Institution Centre for Excellence (HICoE) in Addiction Research. He also serves as a pharmacy lecturer at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. A pharmacist by profession, he brings a diverse background with experience spanning hospital practice, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and retail pharmacy, prior to his current role at USM. He is a registered pharmacist with the Pharmacy Board of Malaysia and a former member of the Drug Control Authority, Ministry of Health Malaysia. His specialization is in Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, with research interests that include neurohormetic phytochemicals and cholinesterase inhibitors for neurodegenerative and lipid disorders. Currently, he is actively involved in the pre-clinical and human studies of kratom for the management of pain and opioid use disorder.