Ph.D
Joined the Hollfelder group: October 2023
Background and Current Projects: I completed my Bachelor studies in Biological Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. With the broader aim of understanding energy metabolism in mycobacteria, I worked on developing expression and purification methods for the F1 (δαβγε)-ATPase of various mycobacterial species for my Bachelor thesis. I also did a research internship at the Environmental Health Institute of Singapore, where I focused on developing and validating culture and molecular-based methods in detecting circulating respiratory viruses. Other projects I have worked on include mutational studies on the Mycobacterium abscessus PanD enzyme, as well as malarial proteins involved in pathogenesis. These projects laid the foundation for and piqued my interest in molecular and cell biology. My Mphil project in the Hollfelder lab seeks to understand the regulatory roles of and changes in cell-cell adhesions in primitive endoderm (PrE) development. Of particular interest is the plakoglobin protein, a component of desmosomes. Plakoglobin has been shown in previous studies to be differentially expressed between different lineages when a zygote develops into a blastocyst., and its overexpression has been observed to be associated with the maintenance of naïve pluripotency. Building on these findings, my work hopes to shed light on the role of plakoglobin in PrE specification.
Interests: I love sports and will (almost) never say no to a good fencing bout or badminton game. In my spare time, I enjoy playing the piano and learning German as a third language.
Publications
[2] Wong, C. F., Leow, C. Y., and Grüber, G. (2023) Cryo-EM Structure of the Mycobacterium abscessus F1-ATPase. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 671, 140-145. Link
[1] Saw, W. G., Leow, C. Y., Harikishore, A., Shin, J., Cole, M. S., Aragaw, W. W., Ragunathan, P., Hegde, P., Aldrich, C. C., Dick, T., and Grüber, G. (2022) Structural and mechanistic insights into Mycobacterium abscessus aspartate decarboxylase PanD and a pyrazinoic acid- derived inhibitor. ACS Infect. Dis. 8, 7, 1324-1325. Link
