WHERE fewer than a third of the world’s researchers in science and technology are women, two Malaysians have gained recognition in the field with the Women of the Future Southeast Asia in March this year. 

They are Dr New Siu Yee and Dr Wan Yong Ho, both associate professors at University of Nottingham Malaysia. 

New, who received the special commendation as one of the most successful young women at the ceremony, was commended “as a strong role model with great ambition and potential to further impact society”.

The 34-year-old received her BSc from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and her PhD from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Her goal is to develop cancer diagnostic tools that will improve the experience of patients.

In an interview with The Malaysian Insight, New said that she was first inspired while working in a research institute in Singapore after graduation.

“I was doing research on nanotechnology, which can be applied to the use of sensors to detect protein-ligand interaction as well as protein-drug interaction. It was during this period that I realised the importance of the application type of research,” she said. 

New, a chemist and a plant material scientist, hopes that her work can help contribute to the facilitation of biomedical research. 

“Biomedical research is a highly complicated process. The procedure is tedious where you have to do a lot of lengthy and laborious experiments at the laboratory stage.” 

The Women of the Future Awards were established in the United Kingdom in 2006. It has been promoted to the Southeast Asian region since 2018 to give recognition to Asean women from various fields.

Although the ceremony had to be held virtually this year, its founder, Pinky Lilani, said the award’s vision and motivation remained the same: to highlight the success of talented women as well as a platform to encourage sharing of experiences and cross-border cooperation.

WOF believes it can encourage, motivate and provide role models to inspire and strengthen the female talent pipeline and in the process create a global community of supportive and collaborative women.

Ho is another scientist who received the same accolade.

Prior to joining the University of Nottingham Malaysia campus as an associate professor, Ho pursued her PhD studies in Universiti Putra Malaysia, where she also received her first degree in biotechnology. 

Her research is in the field of breast cancer, particularly on cancer stem cells, which though small in population are able to initiate cancer and expand it into different forms. 

“For example, if you have a patient who has been treated by chemotherapy but the cancer cells manage to survive, then cancer stem cells are thought to be the cause of this. 

“I’m working to find out more about the small molecules called microRNA and how they function in regulating the behaviour or characteristics of breast cancer stem cells.”

She said understanding better about microRNA will be useful in the fight against cancer in several ways. 

“If we discover the small RNA molecules that regulate stem cell behaviour, then we might be able to know how this can kill stem cells that cause cancer.”

Data from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation state that fewer than 30% of researchers worldwide are women, and about the same percentage of female students are pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in higher education. 

Globally, there are few females studying information and communications technology (3%), natural science, mathematics, and statistics (5%), and engineering, manufacturing and construction (8%).

New said awards and schemes, such as Women of Future and the L’Oréal-Unesco for Women in Science Fellowship, have helped support women scientists to thrive in the research sphere, which is highly represented by men. 

However, they said a lack of resources and funding for the STEM research field in Malaysia can deter their research progress. 

“We are currently dependent on the Education Ministry’s funding, while we also receive funding from the university, we are still lacking in grants for local researchers which can affect the progress of our research,” Ho said. 

Ho also highlighted the lack of facilities in Malaysia’s breast cancer research field compared to countries such as the UK, US and Singapore. 

“When we lack the facilities to conduct this research, our research becomes slower and competition rises because those countries have better resources, hence making them faster than us.” 

She said the lack of facilities has also created a situation where researchers need to outsource their research to other institutions and other countries which can cost a lot. 

Meanwhile, New said while she was abroad, she saw a significant difference in the way the US and Singapore fund STEM research.

For one, facilities and resources in Singapore and the US are more complete compared to Malaysia. 

However, while other countries may have better facilities, the situation has taught local researchers to be more creative finding alternatives for their research, New added.

“I think the bright side here is that it pushes us to be more resourceful. I also think millennial researchers are very good at coming up with all sorts of back-up plans to support their research.

“Let’s say if we face a delay in shipment for our research, we will come up with a back-up plan, so I think it has trained us to be very resourceful.”

The scientists hope that their work and achievements may inspire more youth to join and empower the local research scene, which currently needs much improvement.

“I think it’s good for young researchers to go abroad to gain some useful experience and later come home to contribute their knowledge for the betterment of local research in the STEM field,” New said. – August 7, 2020.