Singapore Health and Biomedical Congress 2017: NSC and DSC clinch awards; NSC Exhibits Skin Imaging App

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Caption:
Senior Consultant Dr Tey Hong Liang (right) receiving his Singapore Clinician Investigator Award (Gold) from the Minister of Health, Mr Gan Kim Yong.
Mr Gan testing out the mobile skin imaging app at the SHBC exhibition area.​​

The annual Singapore Health and Biomedical Congress (SHBC), held on 12-14 October 2017 this year at Singapore Expo and NTU Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, saw several NSC staff clinching awards for their scientific projects.

Senior Consultant Dr Tey Hong Liang was awarded Gold under the Singapore Clinician Investigator Award for his work on employing non-invasive skin imaging for real-time diagnosis and treatment of hypohidrosis (inability to sweat). Our research teams have also achieved gold in the Best Poster Award in the Basic Science, Translational Research category for their work on devising the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) – an automated system which allows for more objective and accurate assessment of psoriasis in patients.

Finally, the team from Department of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) Control (DSC) clinched bronze in the same category for their project on initiating a self-swab collection process for screening of STIs such as gonorrhoea and chlamydia, affording male patients a higher level of comfort and privacy while reducing time spent for nurses and allowing them to attend to patients with more pressing needs.

Meanwhile, a skin imaging mobile app to assess the risk of pigmented skin lesions for skin cancer was exhibited at the event. A collaboration between Singapore University of Technology (SUTD) and our Centre, the app aims to provide a portable and accurate tool of assessment for non-specialists to analyse pigmented skin lesions for risk of melanoma and Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC). The mobile app captures an image via the phone camera and provides a risk assessment of malignancy and recommendations for medical attention if indicated. It also allows for serial monitoring of pigmented lesions. Currently in its clinical testing stage, the team is using the capture of live images for validation of the app.

Collaborations are also being made to work with general practitioners in Australia which has the highest rate of melanoma in the world.