Dr. Sujuan Ba on Precision Medicine at the BioHK CityU-AFCR Symposium| Hosted by Dr. Jemma Arakelyan

In this episode of OncoDaily, hosted by Jemma Arakelyan, Dr. Sujuan Ba, President and CEO of the National Foundation for Cancer Research and Founder of the Asian Fund for Cancer Research, discusses her role as co-chair of the CityU-AFCR Symposium at BioHong Kong 2024, taking place on September 12 and 13. Western and Asian leaders will explore advancements in precision medicine and its integration with digital and AI approaches.

Dr. Jemma Arakelyan is a medical oncologist and the chief executive officer of The Institute of Cancer and Crisis. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the City University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on developing new anticancer treatments and understanding the underlying mechanisms of cancer progression.

In addition to her academic pursuits, she is an active member of several scientific organizations, including the European School of Oncology (ESO), where she served as an ambassador in Armenia from 2020-2022. The Institute is dedicated to promoting awareness and support for cancer patients facing critical situations like war, pandemic, etc.

Dr. Sujuan Ba is a prominent leader in the field of cancer research and a co-founder of several organizations that support innovative and collaborative cancer research projects. She is the President and CEO, Founder of the Asian Fund for Cancer Research. She also serves as the President and CEO of the National Foundation for Cancer Research, the Co-founder and CEO of the AIM-HI Accelerator Fund, and the Co-Founder and Board Member of the Global Coalition for Adaptive Research.

Dr. Ba received her B.S. in radiochemistry from Peking University and her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Ba has received numerous honors and awards like the Trailbraizer Award by The Serica initiative (2024), The Pioneer in Medicine Award from The Society of Brain Mapping Technologies (2024) and many more. She was named one of the “Top 300 Women Leaders in Global Health” in 2015 by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies’ Global Health Programme.

Jemma Arakelyan: So, all of us, we are looking forward to BioHongkong 2024, and I know that you are an organizing co-chair at the CityU-AFCR Symposium on Precision Medicine and Digital Medicine. So, could you give us an overview of the symposium and what is the main initiative, what we are going to talk about more in detail during BioHongkong?

Sujuan Ba: Yes, yes. So, precision medicine is all about finding the right patient, the right drug, and treat patient with the right pathways. So, precision medicine right now is becoming the norm in the Western world, but it’s still at the front end of treatment in Asia.

So, we wanted to bring all the thought leaders from Western countries and have this dialogue with the Asian scientists and then with the public, you know, to share what has been done in the U.S., for example, and what are the learnings we have, the lessons we learn, the foresight that we have, and insights for the future, and I thought it would be very good to have this dedicated precision medicine consortium, and we also realized that precision medicine now really needed to be coupled with digital and AI approach.

So, this is the first time we actually put together precision medicine and digital medicine together. So, we are hoping to promote more interactive dialogues and inject some new thinking and promote some collaboration, and not only that, I have a second day track, and I wanted to bring a different angle to Hong Kong is, you know, entrepreneurship in the U.S. from the scientists, from the scientific community, have been very successful since the 1970s in the U.S., and the scientists have been very actively involved in building, you know, in translating their discoveries and building successful biotech companies.

So, I had this very brilliant, famous two scientists from Harvard and from Colorado, and Dr. Raju Kucherlapati and also Dr. Leslie Leinwand and they both have built billion-dollar biotech companies. So, I asked them to share their learning, you know, building the billion-dollar companies from their innovation, from their research, what they have learned, what insights they can share, and so they can share with a young generation of the scientists or entrepreneurs and how to really go about this, from research to entrepreneurship. So, I hope you will join us.

It should be very exciting.