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Congratulations to Dr Ng Oon Tek on being presented the National Medical Research Council (NMRC) Clinician Scientist Award (CSA)!

Our sincere congratulations to Dr Ng Oon Tek, Consultant at the Department of Infectious Diseases, Tan Tock Seng Hospital on receiving the National Medical Research Council (NMRC) Clinician Scientist Award (CSA) for his research on “Clinical translation of whole genome sequencing to inform infection control and decrease mortality and morbidity from carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae infection”.

The NMRC CSA is awarded to outstanding clinician scientists with an established research track record and the potential to become research leaders in their area of interest. The award provides salary support and protect funding, and is aimed to develop clinicians in translational and clinical research.

Dr Ng’s study focuses on Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE), which is a global, antibiotic-resistant “superbug” threat with 40 to 80% mortality. Infection control, the main intervention to prevent CPE disease spread, is hindered by inability to accurately determine transmission pathways. Even though whole-genome sequencing (WGS) has been confirmed by multiple retrospective seminal academic publications to inform infection control, WGS has rarely been applied prospectively to CPE infection control (or any other pathogens). Dr Ng and his team's successful application of a virtual micro-array to analyze global and local CPE transmission had overcome the lack of plasmid phylogenetic methods, a previous barrier limiting WGS application to CPE control. In this study, the team aims to take the clinical translation step to prospectively applying and evaluating WGS for CPE infection control in one pilot hospital, TTSH.