Siew Chien Ng - Biography#
Professor Siew Ng is Croucher Professor at the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Assistant Dean (Development) and Director for the Microbiota I-Center (MagIC) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She received her Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery degree from the University of London and the Doctor of Philosophy degree (PhD) from Imperial College London.
Prof. Ng is an internationally renowned clinician-scientist in gastrointestinal diseases and microbiome medicine. She is at the forefront of epidemiology, genetics, pathogenesis, and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Asia-Pacific and globally. Her novel discoveries have led to a paradigm shift in regional public health. She was one of the youngest female academics elected to the highly prestigious International Organization for the study of IBD (IOIBD), which is an elite group of top 50 leaders globally. Her work in the gut microbiota has transformed human health. She has identified novel gut bacteria signatures to detect colon cancer, autism spectrum disorders, IBD, and COVID-19. Her novel microbiome immunity formula (SIM01) can hasten COVID recovery and alleviate long COVID. In 2017, she established Asia's first Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) Research Center which is now sole provider of FMT service to all public hospitals in Hong Kong.
Prof. Ng has published over 380 papers in international leading journals, including Nature Medicine, Nature Microbiology, Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, The Lancet, Cell Host & Microbe, Gastroenterology, and Gut. In recognition of her work, Siew Ng has been receiving numerous awards including Bank of China Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Prize, New Cornerstone Investigator award, bestowed with Croucher Professor in Medical Sciences, Gold and Silver Medals of International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva 2024, 2023 and 2022, Croucher Senior Medical Research Fellowship in 2020, Joanna and David Sachar International Award and Visiting Professorship (Mount Sinai, New York) in 2019, Sir Francis Avery Jones Award and Visiting Professorship (St Mark’s Hospital, London) in 2019, Richard Yu’s Award in 2019, First-class award Ministry of Education (MoE) Higher Education Outstanding Scientific Research Output Awards (Natural Science) in 2020 and Highly-cited Researchers by Clarivate in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Recently, Prof. Ng has discovered disease-specific microbial signatures targeting inflammatory bowel disease and autism spectrum disorder and she and her team have transformed these signatures into clinically applicable non-invasive diagnostic tests. Her innovations address the diagnostic gap for over 8 million people suffering from gastrointestinal symptoms and 75 million children with neurodevelopmental conditions, facilitating rapid and accurate diagnostics that enable timely interventions and reducing healthcare costs associated with delayed diagnoses and unnecessary invasive procedures. Her technology was granted Breakthrough Device Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2024 to aid diagnosis of ASD in children at risk of developmental delay. Prof. Ng’s inventions can also be adapted for broader applications in disease monitoring and predicting drug responses for various chronic conditions, including cognitive impairments, mental health disorders, and cancer leading to a personalized patient-centered solution.
