A/Prof CHEW Eng Hui

Teaching Activities in NUS

• PR1111 Pharmaceutical Biochemistry
• PR2122 Biotechnology for Pharmacy
• PR5221 Molecular Targets in Drug Discovery

Research Interests

I am interested in:

1. the study of cellular redox signaling, and
2. drug discovery involving elucidation of mechanism/s of action of novel compounds, specifically the characterization and development of agents that possess potential anticancer, chemopreventive, neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory properties.

The goal is to understand the involvement of redox signaling in malignant transformation and to employ this knowledge for the identification and development of rational therapeutic strategies. For the former, I am interested in characterizing how the thioredoxin system contributes to tumorigenesis. In the lab, a novel interaction between thioredoxin and apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) was identified. The aim is to elucidate the physiological role of the thioredoxin-AIF interaction, which will allow the design and development of potential chemotherapeutic strategies that bring about modulation of the protein-protein interaction to effect cancer cell death. For the latter, my interest is to evaluate the reactivity of electrophilic naturally-occurring compounds and their synthetic derivatives on thiol redox systems and/or redox-sensitive signaling pathways. Electrophilic agents exhibit propensities for nucleophilic molecules such as the thiol-containing amino acid cysteine. Redox-sensitive pathways such as the thioredoxin system, Nrf2-Keap1-ARE and NF-kappaB signaling pathways comprise proteins that contain key cysteines for their biological activities. Modification of these cysteines by the compounds may lead to apoptotic or cytoprotective outcomes.

My laboratory has examined libraries of biologically relevant electrophilic compounds for their potential anti-tumor, cytoprotective, neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory properties. We have identified several classes of electrophilic compounds that are multifunctional through targeting the key nucleophilic amino acids in the molecular targets.

Publication list available here.