Asia’s Scientific Trailblazers: Sham Mai Har

After my PhD, I applied for a postdoctoral position at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. The research was in a new area on mouse genomics focusing on a class of genes called homeobox genes. It was fascinating. I had worked on plants and never worked on genes like that before. That’s how I got into developmental biology.

When one of my first mentors was dissecting a mouse embryo, she said, “Come and look at the microscope.” I went to look, and it was an embryo with a beautiful beating heart. My heart was captured then—I could see life right in front of me.

I’ve been working with two cell types called neural crest cells and placodal cells. During early development, these give rise to many tissue types but most notably, our sensory organs. In my research team, we discovered that the placodal cells represent multipotent stem cells and progenitor cells. There are many possibilities for developing therapeutic applications from an understanding of these basic cell types.

I must also acknowledge the people who work with me because I have taken extremely talented PhD students in my lab. From their perspective, they were able to point out aspects that I wasn’t aware of. Together, we discovered something new. This is an achievement but also a journey, a very satisfying experience.

There’s something really exciting that is developing in the field and has a big impact—what we call single-cell technologies. With the ability to understand the molecular events inside a single cell, it allows us to look at cells and relationships of cells in a way that is unprecedented. We’re able to distinguish individual cellular properties.

In the context of developmental biology, this means a lot because you could actually discover transitional cell stages or what we call progenitors. In analyzing biology, you have a fixed frame of looking at things at a particular time. But if you collect cells that show multiple cell stages, it allows you to link up the events in one go. My lab is using single-cell technology to look at the neural crest cells and placodal cells. It’s an exciting time.

We want to maintain our excellence in research and go further. We emphasize a lot about the impact of research both in academia and our society.

We invest time, energy and human capital on technology transfer and knowledge transfer activities. Knowledge transfer is not just about filing more patents, but rather changing the culture in the university—to steer everybody to be more aware of the societal impact.

To have a real impact on society, the university’s role has to focus on innovation, discovery and the fundamental aspects. If you do not have the fundamental research that drives the innovation, then you have nothing to base on for the longer-term future.

In the academic setting, we go through promotion and tenure situations. During COVID-19, we put in a mechanism called deferment consideration, allowing faculty to postpone their performance review for a year. This would help in particular women scientists who have to look after their children at home.

The consideration is not about giving them more time but empowering them so that they will be equally competitive and be able to get the tenure as they are expected to. Women scientists should be encouraged and be given opportunities so that they can develop at a similar pace.

In research, large volumes of data are generated very fast, so managing it becomes harder and harder. We need to organize our data in a system for proper storage, retrieval and sharing. If the data is not stored and managed well, you will lose the possibility of accessing useful information and valuable resources. There is a growing demand for data management, and there is a large gap in training on data management.

Another direction is the practice of open science. When it comes to integrity, the likelihood of the data being reliable is higher, because you have to show everything—not only the analyzed outcome, but also the original raw data. These are the two major areas that are very closely linked to the responsible conduct of research.

We need to be ambitious. We have a lot of opportunities in Asia, but we need to be brave enough to grab them. Nothing is too big for us. Just go!