Investigator: Dr Zeng Qi
Co-Investigators: Prof Neal Copeland, Prof Nancy Jenkins, Prof Jean Paul Thirery, Prof Wanjin Hong and Prof Philip Ingham.

IMCB Executive Director Professor Neal Copeland and lead scientist Dr. Zeng Qi have received a $ 3.1 million Flagship grant award from Mr. Boon Swan Foo, Executive Chairman of ETPL (Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd -A member of A*STAR). Deputy Directors Professors Nancy Jenkins Copeland, Wanjin Hong, and Philip Ingham also attended the award ceremony held at ETPL’s boardroom on February 27, 2009.

The prestigious award aims to support Dr. Zeng’s research team to explore a unique approach of inhibiting human cancer metastases using antibodies against PRL-3 phosphatase. ETPL expects her team to generate several humanized PRLs’ antibodies as candidates for therapeutic agents to treat multiple human cancers associated with overexpression of PRL-phosphatases, as several pharmaceutical and biotech companies have expressed strong interests in the proposed antibody therapies in mice.

Mr. Boon congratulates IMCB for the first such Flagship award and hopes to see more Flagship grants awarded to IMCB in the future. Professor Copeland and the Deputy Directors congratulate Dr. Zeng and her team for their impressive progress that anchored the award to IMCB.

Dr. Zeng Qi’s website: http://www.imcb.a-star.edu.sg/php/qz.php