MALAYSIAN RESEARCHER WON THE 4 th ASEAN-ROK AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION 2022

PUTRAJAYA, 14 December 2022 – The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) wishes to congratulate Malaysian researcher, Dr. Annie Chai Wai Yeeng as the winner of the Next ASEAN Innovator Category in the 4
th ASEAN-ROK Award for Excellence in Science, Technology and Innovation 2022.

The 4th ASEAN-ROK Award for Excellence in Science, Technology and Innovation 2022 was conferred by the Government of the Republic of Korea (ROK) through the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) in support of the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to encourage young scientists and engineers to take on research in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) and recognizes the academic and professional achievements of promising, early-career scientists and engineers of ASEAN nationality.

Dr. Annie Chai Wai Yeeng, the Senior Scientist at Cancer Research Malaysia, focused her research on the identification of synergistic drug combinations in unique Asian cancer models using machine learning for the computational method to predict synergistic drug combinations using a combination of CRISPR/ Cas9 essential screen, genomics and drug
screening data, primarily on Asian-derived head and neck cancer (HNC).

She is awarded a cash prize of USD12,000.00 and has been invited to attend the one-week ASEAN-ROK STI Training Programme from 27 November until 3 December 2022 in Seoul, the Republic of Korea, and to present and share her work. The award was officially handed to the winner by the MSIT, ROK and STEPI during the ASEAN-ROK STI Award Ceremony on 1 December 2022.

This is the second time that Malaysian researchers have won the award as Dr. Nur Hafizah Abd Khalid from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) won the 2nd ASEAN-ROK Award for Excellence in Science, Technology and Innovation 2020 in the same category. It is hoped that such achievement will be a source of inspiration and motivation to spur further interest among national research institutions and researchers to strive towards an innovative solution for the current and future challenging problems by leveraging STI.