Yunn-Hwen Gan BACPATH 2022

Yunn-Hwen Gan

Yunn-Hwen Gan graduated from Purdue University with a BSc (Honours) in Molecular Biology and University of Wisconsin-Madison with a PhD in medical microbiology and immunology in the USA. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore. She is the co-director of the Infectious Diseases Translational Research Program at the school. She is a world leading researcher in melioidosis, a disease primarily in the tropics caused by the bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei. Her lab has pivoted to research in the pathogenesis of hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae, that is responsible for causing liver abscess, since 2015. Her team works on identifying bacterial virulence and gut colonization factors of hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae. Another research interest is to track and study the spread of carbapenem-resistance plasmids in K. pneumoniae in the region. Together with other collaborators, her team is keen to devise novel strategies in treating multidrug resistant Klebsiella infections and to achieve colonization resistance in the gut.