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Narayanan Gopalakrishna Iyer

Professor, SingHealth Duke-NUS Oncology Academic Clinical Programme

Duke-NUS Medical School

Bio

Dr Iyer graduated top of his medical school class at NUS in 1998, with Honours. He subsequently went on to complete a PhD in molecular carcinogenesis at the University of Cambridge under Prof Carlos Caldas. He trained as a general surgeon at Singapore General Hospital and then went on to two separate head and neck surgical fellowships at Sydney Head and Neck Cancer Institute at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Australia and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, New York, USA. At the end of his fellowship at MSKCC, he was awarded the Michael Burt award for being the best fellow in the surgical division both in terms of operative skill and research output. 

Currently, Dr Gopal Iyer works as a head and neck surgeon in National Cancer Centre and Singapore General Hospital. He is also Senior Consultant of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Head and Neck Centre. Dr Gopal has extensive experience in the surgical management of head and neck cancers, as well as surgery for benign diseases in the head and neck (including thyroid, salivary gland and skin lesions). He performs complex resections and reconstructions of cancers involving the oral cavity, oropharynx, larynx, hypopharynx, nasopharynx, paranasal sinuses and neck. He is involved in the robotic and endoscopic head and neck surgical program having performed a number of these procedures locally and mentored the first ever robotic thyroidectomy in Australia in Feb 2012. 

He is actively involved in research and leads a number of research programs that study various clinical and translational aspects of head and neck cancer prognostication and therapeutics. He is the principal investigator of the Cancer Therapeutics Research Laboratory (National Cancer Centre) where the over-arching theme is the identification of novel biomarkers that guide therapeutic decisions, identification of novel therapeutic targets and modification of conventional therapy for head and neck cancers for precision oncology. This is achieved through several different approaches. Clinical research is achieved through the establishment and enrichment of good clinical databases to answer specific clinical questions and dilemmas in head and neck oncology. Biomarker discovery is focused on established and state-of the art technologies from next-gen sequencing, immunohistochemistry, flow cytometry to single cell genomics. Functional analyses to modify therapeutic paradigms involve the establishment of patient-derived 2D and 3D cell cultures, stem cell models, as well as modelling the immune micro-environment ex vivo. Apart from using these to test the efficacy of existing compounds, they provide valuable insight into novel mechanism of disease that determine the therapeutic response. The latter includes understanding the role of long non-coding RNAs and alternative splicing. These have been published in a number of high impact journals including Nature Medicine, Nature Communication, Oncogene and Genome Medicine. The overall objective is to translate this knowledge into clinical trials and patient specific outcome, even in the era of shifting focus in the therapeutic spheres.

Education

Doctor of Philosophy

University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Bachelor of Med, Bachelor of Surg with Hons

National University of Singapore, Singapore

NUS Appointment(s)

Member

Specialist Committee, MDS Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, NUS, Currently Active

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