Prof Lo Yew Long

Chairman
Centralised Institutional Review Board
SingHealth 

Professor Lo graduated from the National University of Singapore in 1988.  He joined the Department of Neurology, Singapore General Hospital in 1994 and completed his postgraduate fellowship in Clinical Neurophysiology at the University of Oxford in 1998. He has been a fellow of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore, since 1999. He was previously Head and currently Deputy Medical Director and Senior Consultant Neurologist at the National Neuroscience Institute (SGH Campus) and Professor, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Adjunct Professor, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore.

Professor Lo is active in the field of Clinical Neurophysiology and lectures regularly on this subject in the USA, Europe, Australasia and Asian countries. . He was the founder president of the Clinical Neurophysiology Society (Singapore) and representative to the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. He was an invited speaker in the World and Asian Oceanian Congresses of Neurology, as well as the European and International Congress of Clinical Neurophysiology. In 2007, he was the awarded the Galloway Lectureship for his work in cervical myelopathy.

His main research interests are on spinal cord disorders, where he has held 3 National Medical Research Grants. He is principal investigator of projects addressing the functional neurophysiology of cord compression, mechanisms of cervical whiplash and cortical plasticity changes in spinal cord dysfunction. Other ongoing international research collaborations include transcranial magnetic stimulation in motor control, neuromuscular transmission in demyelinating neuropathies and imaging correlates of cortical and cerebellar activity.

He is past Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of Singapore Healthcare. He has over 150 publications in international peer reviewed journals, including first author papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, Neurology, The Lancet Neurology, Annals of Neurology, Brain, Archives of Neurology, and Nature Clinical Reviews Neurology.

His book titled “Clinical Neurophysiology: New Clinical and Research Applications” is published in 2013.

Presentation Title

Singapore has long been a leader in clinical research from the early days of the 20th century. The landscape however has changed dramatically in the last few decades with the advent of strong commercial pressures as well as increasing regulatory oversight. While researchers often complain about the slow pace of IRB handling of research protocols, given tight deadlines from funding agencies, the IRB perspective is often neglected. There are numerous examples of issues which have arisen in IRB approved studies in Singapore. The challenge is to have a workable approach which protects human subjects while facilitating cutting edge research to deal with the challenges of human health in Singapore and beyond.

< Back to Speakers' Information