| Universiti Putra Malaysia

Angeli from UPM, wins back-to-back Berend Houwen Travel Award

By Azman Zakaria
Foto by Marina Ismail


SERDANG, Sept 30- Universiti Putra Malaysia’s Master In Science (Hematology) student from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Angeli d/o Ambayya @ Ampiah, created history of sorts when she won the prestigious Berend Houwen Travel Award for two consecutive years.

She walked away with the internationally-acclaimed Berend Houwen Travel Award 2016 in Milan, Italy, recently, after winning a similar award in Chicago, USA, in 2015.

It was a feat made more memorable when two of her researches won the award for this year.

The award was presented to her during the 29th International Symposium on Technological Innovations in Laboratory Hematology, held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the International Society of Laboratory Haematology (ISLH) last May from 12 to 14.

Angeli, 34,  who is presently working as Science Officer at the Clinical Hematology Laboratory, Department of Haematology, Hospital Ampang, was one of seven recipients who won the award for 2016.

Hailed from Raub, Pahang, she received a certificate, a plaque, US$3,000 cash and a free registration for her to attend the conference.

“I did not expect to win as I had already won an award in 2015. My thinking was that the organizer would look for other winners.

“But I was really taken aback when I received an e-mail from ISLH, informing me of my win,” she said in an interview here.



She submitted an abstract of her research close to the expiry date of participation confirmation, and did not expect to win anything as what she wanted was her submission to be part of the international conference which is the best to have been held in relation to hematology.

“It never crossed my mind that the topics of my researches which I chose for my course programme were recognized internationally,” she said, expressing her gratitude to UPM.

Twice she submitted her abstract studies in 2012 and 2013 to ISLH but to no avail. However, Lady Luck smiled on her when she won the award in 2015 and again, for the second time this year.

She expressed her appreciation for support she received from her Supervisor who is also Senior Lecturer at the Pathology Department of Medicine and Health Sciences Faculty, Dr Sabariah Md Noor; another Supervisor, Dr Zainina Seman who is also Senior Lecturer at the faculty; Hospital Ampang Hematology Department Head, Dato’ Dr Chang Kian Meng; the hospital’s Hematology Laboratory Head, Dr Subramanian Yegappan; and Hospital Sultanah Aminah Johor Bahru hematologist, Dr  Lim Soo Min.

According to her, the award she won was for her two researches on acute myeloid leukaemia entitled Identification of germline and somatic aberrations in acute myeloid leukaemia genome by using customised DNA microarray and Novel genomic aberrations detected with customised DNA microarray in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) patients with poor survival.

The first research was performed using microarray techniques which utilized a combination platform of Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH) and Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) that enabled stimultaneous detection of genomic abnormalities related to copy number alterations (CNAs) and copy neutral loss of heterozygosity (CN-LOH).

In her second research, a total 526 genomic aberrations were detected in poor prognosis acute myeloid leukaemia patients.

According to her,some of these novel aberrations were recurrent and could serve as independent predictors of overall survival in AML for leukemia patients in Malaysia. - UPM


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