Associate Professor Joanne Ngeow Yuen Yie
Senior Consultant, Division of Medical Oncology
National Cancer Centre Singapore
BMedSci, MBBS, FRCP, MPH, FAMS

Research Programme: Population & Global Health; Developmental/Stem Biology & Regenerative Medicine

Associate Professor Joanne Ngeow is an Associate Professor at Nanyang Technological University's Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. She is also a Senior Consultant in Division of Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS). A/Prof Ngeow currently heads the NCCS Cancer Genetics Service with an academic interest in hereditary cancer syndromes and translational clinical cancer genomics. Her current clinical focus and research revolves around understanding cancer predisposition by studying cancers clustering in families, young adults and in families with multiple / rare cancer presentations.

After completing her undergraduate medical studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2001, she completed her Internal Medicine training at the Singapore General Hospital and trained in Medical Oncology at NCCS. She was awarded consecutive fellowships by the SingHealth Research Foundation, National Medical Research Council, and the Ambrose Monell Foundation to complete formal clinical and bench training as the Ambrose Monell Cancer Genomic Medicine Fellow at the Genomic Medicine Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio. She was formally trained in clinical cancer genetics and in laboratory-based human cancer genetics.

In 2014, A/Prof Ngeow returned to NCCS as Assistant Professor with the Oncology Academic Clinical Programme at Duke-NUS Medical School to lead the clinical cancer genetics service and research programme into inherited cancer syndromes. The Cancer Genetics Service provides cancer risk assessment and genetic testing for families at risk of hereditary cancers. Common conditions seen in the clinic include Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Syndromes, Hereditary Non-Polyposis Cancer Syndrome/Lynch syndrome, Familial Colorectal Cancers, Hereditary Renal Cancer, Hereditary Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma. Assoc Prof Ngeow spearheaded the systematic implementation of the clinical cancer genomics into routine oncology care at NCCS through the establishment of the Cancer Genetics Service, new career tracks for Genetic Counsellors and education symposia for students/residents. Her team helped establish the Hereditary/Familial Cancer Cancer Service Line Development Project bringing together multi-disciplinary clinicians across SingHealth and other institutions to establish clinical care guidelines for at-risk families.

A/Prof Ngeow completed her Master of Public Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, in 2015 with a focus in cancer epidemiology and health economics making her one of a handful of individuals globally with skills spanning translational science, clinical genetics and health services research. She serves on many local and international advisory/expert panels on how to implement genomics into routine clinical practice. A/Prof Ngeow has been awarded the Early Investigator Award by the Endocrine Society in 2016 for her contributions into thyroid cancer research. She has received consecutive Merit Awards by the American Society of Clinical Oncology for her research in hereditary cancers. A/Prof Ngeow has published over 130 peer reviewed papers in such journals as the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Annals of Oncology, Human Molecular Genetics, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Gastroenterology. She is an Associate Editor for Endocrine-Related Cancers. She received the NMRC Transition Award (2014-2016) and was awarded the Clinician Scientist Award in 2017. She is the co-PI of the Health for Life in Singapore (HELIOS) Study, a state-of the art population cohort study exploring gene-lifestyle contributors to chronic diseases in Singapore. Dr Ngeow was awarded the 2020 SkillsFuture Fellow Award for her mentorship of future clinician scientists in the field of cancer genomic medicine.