Welcome to the School of Health and Natural Sciences!

We are a growing and vibrant community where the well-being of living beings is our main concern. Through skilful teaching, thoughtful guidance and exploratory research, both students and staff continuously strive to advance their understanding of subjects in their respective fields.

The mission of the school is to provide training and research in health and natural sciences. We aimed to produce the best possible graduates who are equipped to solve problems in their work settings, and who are also inquisitive and thoughtful enough to develop better technologies that can better improve the mental and physical well-being of the community.

Our main department, which is Psychology, share the stories of the daily activities of lecturers and students through their web-pages.

Head of School

Professor
Head
School of Health and Natural Sciences
Sunway University
Tel: +60374918622 Ext:3837
Fax:+60356358633
e-mail: pohcl@sunway.edu.my

 

Professor Poh Chit Laa obtained her BSc (Hons) First Class and PhD in Science majoring in Microbiology from Monash University, Australia. I taught in University of Malaya for a year (1981) before joining the Faculty of Medicine in the National University of Singapore (NUS) for 25 years. I took up a visiting Professorship in Biomedical Science in Curtin University, Perth, in 2005 and subsequently joined Swinburne University in Melbourne in 2007. I came back to Malaysia in 2009 and accepted a Professorship in Medical Microbiology in the University of Malaya where I spent most of my time in supervising postgraduate research. In NUS, I have graduated 9 PhDs and 8 MScs and numerous BSc (Hons) students. I have published 77 ISI-cited journal papers and co-authored 3 chapters in books. I am trained both as a bacteriologist and virologist and have published work in both fields. My h-index is 16.

My research interests are focused on the development of anti-bacterial agents as well as antiviral agents and novel vaccines against Enterovirus 71(EV71) which causes hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD). EV71 is known to cause mild fever in children and they often develop vesicles on the hands and feet as well as ulcers in the mouth. The illness is self-limiting in most instances but EV71 infections can sometimes result in serious neurological complications which can result in death. In 2009, large outbreaks of HFMD involving over a million children in China has resulted in 13,810 severe cases and 353 deaths. Currently, there are no antiviral or vaccines that can be clinically applied to either treat or prevent EV71 infections. The pathogenic differences between different EV71 strains still remain largely unknown. We are interested in gaining an understanding of the molecular determinants of neurovirulence which may explain the virulence of different strains. My group is committed to develop effective antiviral peptides and novel live-attenuated vaccine through micro-RNA silencing of the viral genome.

Collaborations are on-going with University of Malaya and Swinburne University of Technology, Australia on the identification of an antiviral peptide derived from the VP1 region of EV71 and the development of synthetic peptides incorporating B-and T-cell epitopes as novel vaccines.

References:

1. Lee JJ, Seah JB, Chow VT, Poh CL, Tan EL. Comparative proteome analysis of host protein expression in response to Enterovirus 71 and Coxsackievirus A16 infections. J Proteomics. 2011 May (In Press).
2. Poh CL, Tan EL.Detection of enteroviruses from clinical specimens. Methods Mol Biol. 2011, 665: 65-77.
3. Wu Y, Tan EL, Yeo A, Chan KP, Nishimura H, Cardosa MJ, Poh CL, Quak SH, Chow VT. Novel multiplex oligonucleotide-conjugated bead suspension array for rapid identification of enterovirus 71 subgenogroups.J Clin Microbiol. 2011 Jan, 49(1): 419-422.
4. Kurupati P, Ramachandran NP, Poh CL.Protective efficacy of DNA vaccines encoding outer membrane protein A and OmpK36 of Kelbsiella pneumonia in mice. Clin Vaccine Immunol. 2011 Jan, 18(1): 82-88.