PUTRAJAYA - Dr Annie Chai Wai Yeeng, a Senior Scientist at Cancer Research Malaysia, has made Malaysia proud by winning the Next ASEAN Innovator Category in the recently concluded 4th ASEAN-ROK (Republic of Korea) Award for Excellence in Science, Technology and Innovation 2022 in Seoul, South Korea.
In a statement today, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) said that the award was for her research on the identification of synergistic drug combinations in unique Asian cancer models using machine learning for the computational method to predict synergistic drug combinations using a combination of CRISPR/ Cas9 essential screen, genomics and drug screening data, primarily on Asian-derived head and neck cancer (HNC).
"She is awarded a cash prize of US$12,000.00 and has been invited to attend the one-week ASEAN-ROK STI Training Programme from Nov 27 until Dec 3 in Seoul and to present and share her work.
"The award was officially handed to the winner by the MSIT, ROK and STEPI during the ASEAN-ROK STI Award Ceremony on Dec 1," it said.
The 4th ASEAN-ROK Award for Excellence in Science, Technology and Innovation 2022 was conferred by the ROK government through the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) in support of the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to encourage young scientists and engineers to take on research in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) and recognizes the academic and professional achievements of promising, early-career scientists and engineers of ASEAN nationality.
MOSTI said this was the second time that Malaysian researchers have won the award after Dr Nur Hafizah Abd Khalid from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) won the 2nd ASEAN-ROK Award for Excellence in Science, Technology and Innovation 2020 in the same category.
"It is hoped that such achievement will be a source of inspiration and motivation to spur further interest among national research institutions and researchers to strive towards an innovative solution for the current and future challenging problems by leveraging STI," it said. -- BERNAMA