Bioactive Materials welcomes five new Associate Editors in 2023

We would like to welcome our new editorial team members: David Tai Leong (National University of Singapore, Singapore), Hua (Cathy) Ye (University of Oxford), Fang Yang (Radboud University Medical Center), Cesar de la Fuente (University of Pennsylvania) and Hui-suk Yun (Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) & the University of Science & Technology (UST)).

Full Name: David Tai Wei LEONG, PhD, Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry

Affiliation: Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, NUS

Designation: Associate Professor

Office address: 4 Engineering Drive 4, Blk E5 #02-09 Singapore 117585

Contact email: cheltwd@nus.edu.sg

Contact number: 65167262

Education and Training

2006                 Ph.D. Biology                                        National University of Singapore

1998                 B. Chem. Eng. (Honours)                       National University of Singapore

Employment:

1999-2002        Lecturer and Tutor, Raffles Junior College

2007-2008        Postdoctoral Fellow, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, U Penn

2008-2010        Lee Kuan Yew Postdoctoral Fellow, Cancer Science Institute, NUS

2010-2016        Asst Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, NUS

2017-present    Assoc Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, NUS

Research Interests/Expertise

• Nanomaterials-induced Endothelial Leakiness
• Biological effects and mechanisms of nanoparticles-cellular interactions
• Transition metal dichalcogenides nanomaterials
• Noble metal nanoclusters
• Biological Nanomaterials
• DNA nanostructures
• Membrane derived nanostructures

Dr. Ye is an Associate Professor in Engineering Science in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at University of Oxford and heads Oxford Centre for Tissue Engineering and Bioprocessing. Dr. Ye holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from Dalian University of Technology (1998), China and a Ph.D. in Engineering Science from University of Oxford (2005). She spent one year exploring the commercial value of her PhD project on hollow fibre membrane bioreactor as an Enterprise Fellow at Begbroke Science Park of University of Oxford before taking up the post of Post-doctoral Research Associate at Imperial College London in 2005. Her research interests lie in stem cell bioprocessing (expansion and differentiation) and biomaterials and bioreactors for tissue engineering. Dr Ye has published over 90 journal articles, 6 book chapters and secured research funding of over £14M both from the Research Councils UK and industry. She is invited to be the volume editor of Comprehensive Biotechnology 4th Edition, one of Elsevier’s major reference works. She is the co-Founder of cell cultured meat company Ivy Farm (https://www.ivy.farm/).

Dr. Fang Yang is a biomaterial scientist specializing in innovative approaches for tissue regeneration and drug delivery. She earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Beihang University, followed by a PhD in Bioengineering from the National University of Singapore in 2005. Dr. Yang then joined Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands and works now as an assistant professor. Currently, her research focuses on nanocarriers for bone and periodontal tissue regeneration and disease treatment. Her expertise lies in biopolymers, biocomposites, and the electrospinning technique, complemented by comprehensive biomaterial characterization. Dr. Yang has made substantial contributions to her field, with nearly 120 journal articles published and an H-index of 40. Additionally, she is serving as the Secretary of the Netherlands Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering.

César de la Fuente is a Presidential Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he leads the Machine Biology Group. Previously, he pursued postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and earned a PhD at the University of British Columbia (UBC). His research goal is to use the power of machines to accelerate discoveries in biology and medicine. Specifically, he pioneered the development of the first computer-designed antibiotic with efficacy in animal models, demonstrating the application of AI for antibiotic discovery and helping launch this emerging field. His lab has also been in the vanguard of developing computational methods for proteome mining, leading to the breakthrough discovery of a whole new world of antimicrobials. These efforts explored the human proteome as a source of antibiotics for the first time and have dramatically accelerated the time needed to discover preclinical candidates, from years to hours. De la Fuente’s group was also the first to find therapeutic molecules in extinct organisms, launching the field of molecular de-extinction. Additional advances from his lab include designing algorithms for antibiotic discovery, reprogramming venoms into antimicrobials, creating novel resistance-proof antimicrobial materials, and inventing rapid, low-cost diagnostic devices for COVID-19 and other infections. Prof. de la Fuente is an NIH MIRA investigator and has received recognition and research funding from numerous other groups. De la Fuente has received over 60 national and international awards. He is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), becoming one of the youngest ever to be inducted. He was recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the world’s top innovators for “digitizing evolution to make better antibiotics.” He was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Langer Prize and as an ACS Kavli Emerging Leader in Chemistry, an ASM Distinguished Lecturer, Waksman Foundation Lecturer, and received the AIChE’s 35 Under 35 Award, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Young Investigator Award, and the ACS Infectious Diseases Young Investigator Award. He also received the Thermo Fisher Award, as well as the EMBS Academic Early Career Achievement Award “For the pioneering development of novel antibiotics designed using principles from computation, engineering, and biology.” Most recently, Prof. de la Fuente was awarded the prestigious Princess of Girona Prize for Scientific Research, the ASM Award for Early Career Applied and Biotechnological Research, the Rao Makineni Lectureship Award by the American Peptide Society, and was selected as a National Academy of Medicine Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine. De la Fuente serves on the editorial boards of more than 20 scholarly journals and is currently an Associate Editor of Drug Resistance Updates (IF= 24.3; the premier international drug resistance journal), Nature Communications Biology, Bioengineering & Translational Medicine, and Digital Discovery. He has been named a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate several times. Prof. de la Fuente has given over 220 invited lectures, including numerous Keynote and Named Lectures, and has spoken at TEDx. He has co-authored a book on machine learning for drug discovery and his scientific discoveries have yielded multiple patents and over 130 publications, including papers in Science, Cell Host Microbe, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, PNAS, ACS Nano, Cell, Nature Chemical Biology, and Advanced Materials.

Hui-suk Yun is the head of the Department of Advanced Biomaterials Research at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) and a professor at the University of Science & Technology (UST) in the Department of Materials Science. Yun holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science Engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan. She completed her post-doctoral research at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and then began working as a lecturer at Waseda University, Japan. Her research interests include bioceramics, tissue engineering, and technologies for ceramic additive manufacturing.