Academic Profile : Faculty

Asst Prof Foo Jia Nee
Assistant Professor, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine
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Team
• Dr Elaine Chew, Dean's Postdoctoral Fellow
• Moses Tandiono, Research Associate
• Michelle Lian Mulan, Research Associate
• Dr Heng Yue Jing, Research Fellow
• Ashim Paul Deb, PhD student
• Chang Chu Hua, PhD student
• Jolyn Lim Jia Jia, PhD student
Assistant Professor Foo Jia Nee is a Nanyang Assistant Professor at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine), Nanyang Technological University (NTU). She is also a Visiting Scientist at the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI) and Deputy Director of Brain Bank Singapore.
Asst Prof Foo did her Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Biotechnology at Imperial College London and her PhD in Genetics at the Yale University School of Medicine. During her PhD training at Yale with Prof. Richard P. Lifton, she analysed rare coding variants in renal salt handling genes for a role in blood pressure variation and hypertension risk in the Framingham Heart Study cohort. She did her postdoctoral training at the GIS, working with Dr Liu Jianjun on whole-exome sequencing and genome-wide association studies of Parkinson’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, IgA nephropathy and other rare skin and childhood neurological diseases. She has published over 120 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Genetics, JAMA Neurology, Cell Stem Cell, Nature Aging, Nature Communications, American Journal of Human Genetics, PLoS Genetics and Nature Reviews Neurology.
She was one of the recipients of the inaugural A*STAR Biomedical Research Council Young Investigator Grant in 2013, and the prestigious National Research Foundation (NRF) fellowship in 2016.
• Dr Elaine Chew, Dean's Postdoctoral Fellow
• Moses Tandiono, Research Associate
• Michelle Lian Mulan, Research Associate
• Dr Heng Yue Jing, Research Fellow
• Ashim Paul Deb, PhD student
• Chang Chu Hua, PhD student
• Jolyn Lim Jia Jia, PhD student
Assistant Professor Foo Jia Nee is a Nanyang Assistant Professor at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine), Nanyang Technological University (NTU). She is also a Visiting Scientist at the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI) and Deputy Director of Brain Bank Singapore.
Asst Prof Foo did her Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Biotechnology at Imperial College London and her PhD in Genetics at the Yale University School of Medicine. During her PhD training at Yale with Prof. Richard P. Lifton, she analysed rare coding variants in renal salt handling genes for a role in blood pressure variation and hypertension risk in the Framingham Heart Study cohort. She did her postdoctoral training at the GIS, working with Dr Liu Jianjun on whole-exome sequencing and genome-wide association studies of Parkinson’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, IgA nephropathy and other rare skin and childhood neurological diseases. She has published over 120 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Genetics, JAMA Neurology, Cell Stem Cell, Nature Aging, Nature Communications, American Journal of Human Genetics, PLoS Genetics and Nature Reviews Neurology.
She was one of the recipients of the inaugural A*STAR Biomedical Research Council Young Investigator Grant in 2013, and the prestigious National Research Foundation (NRF) fellowship in 2016.
Each of us carries coding changes in our DNA that disrupt the function of genes; many of these changes are rare in the population, and some are even unique to us and our relatives. These changes are heritable, naturally-occurring and contribute to our inter-individual differences. Asst Prof Foo’s research aims to identify these changes and use them as “experiments of nature” to gain insights into why some individuals are more susceptible to certain diseases than others. Identifying the underlying causes of such diseases will also help in the identification of new drug targets.
Her laboratory is working towards defining the full spectrum of rare and common germline genetic variation responsible for neurological diseases, with a focus on gene-disrupting variants. They are performing a rigorous interrogation of the entire protein coding regions of the human genome in large collections of patients and controls, to identify genes that are recurrently disrupted by germline variants in disease cases but not (or rarely) in controls. In collaboration with overseas brain banks, her team will also investigate the roles of somatic mutations in post-mortem diseased brain tissue, thus exploring an alternative mechanism through which gene-disrupting mutations may underlie a disease.
Her research will cover neurodegenerative diseases, childhood neurological diseases, mental health and cognition, and is also open to other genetically-tractable human traits. Newly-identified genes and variants will be followed up functionally and epidemiologically in the lab, in collaboration with other colleagues at LKCMedicine and GIS.

Her laboratory is working towards defining the full spectrum of rare and common germline genetic variation responsible for neurological diseases, with a focus on gene-disrupting variants. They are performing a rigorous interrogation of the entire protein coding regions of the human genome in large collections of patients and controls, to identify genes that are recurrently disrupted by germline variants in disease cases but not (or rarely) in controls. In collaboration with overseas brain banks, her team will also investigate the roles of somatic mutations in post-mortem diseased brain tissue, thus exploring an alternative mechanism through which gene-disrupting mutations may underlie a disease.
Her research will cover neurodegenerative diseases, childhood neurological diseases, mental health and cognition, and is also open to other genetically-tractable human traits. Newly-identified genes and variants will be followed up functionally and epidemiologically in the lab, in collaboration with other colleagues at LKCMedicine and GIS.
- Predisposing lineage specification via precise emulation of 3D embryonic epiblast
- Construct kidney organoids with higher-order tissue architecture for studying congenital kidney diseases
- Genomic approaches to detect somatic mosaicism in Parkinson’s disease brains
- Spatially resolved molecular signatures of Parkinson’s disease pathology and progression
- Understanding effects of remyelination on functional recovery after CNS injury
Courses Taught
MD7110 Advanced Genetics in Diseases, Ageing and Cancer
MD7108 Neural Systems and Behavior
MD7108 Neural Systems and Behavior