Ee Sin CHEN
Ee Sin CHENAssociate Professor
[email protected]

Affiliations

Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Principal Investigator, NUS Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation (SynCTI)
Supervisor, NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering (NGS), NUS.
Editorial Board, Frontier of Cell & Developmental Biology.
Editorial Board, Scientific Reports.

Professional Appointments

– Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS (2019– Present)
– Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS (2009–2018)
– Post-doctoral Research Fellow, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, USA (2004–2009)
– Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Post-doctoral Fellow, Kyoto University, Japan (2003–2004)
– Assistant Research Officer, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore (1992–1996)

Education

– BSc (Hons): National University of Singapore (NUS), Faculty of Science (1992)
– M.Sc.: Kyoto University, Faculty of Science, Japan (1999)
– Ph.D.: Kyoto University, Faculty of Science, Japan (2003)

Research Interest

Maintaining the integrity of the genome is essential for the survival of a cell and genomic instability is associated with many human diseases including cancers. A cell ensures the integrity of its genome with an intricate interplay of epigenetic mechanisms to safeguard nuclear processes, including chromosome segregation, repair of DNA damage lesions and gene expression. Our lab aims to investigate the epigenetic mechanisms at the molecular level by:

* Identifying and characterizing factors that epigenetically control essential chromatin functions that have direct implication to genomic stability.
* Elucidating how different epigenetic mechanisms interplay to control faithful inheritance of chromatin information through the cell cycle.
* Investigating the genetic and epigenetic regulation of functional sub-nuclear compartments.

Our lab employs the powerful genetics, cytology and biochemistry of the model organism fission yeast to address these important issues. Results obtained will be extended to elucidate epigenetic mechanisms operating in the mammalian cells, to facilitate the development of therapy for human diseases and cancers.

Current Research Projects

– Role of Set2 in governing DNA damage response in fission yeast
– Epigenetic regulation of defective centromere salvage by Set2
– Identification of cancer driver mutations by artificial intelligence
– Synthetic biological modulation of Coenzyme Q10 production.
– Construction of chemogenomics drug screening platform.
– Clinical study of giant cell tumor of the bone.

Selected Publications

  1. Yao Y., Lee V.K.M. and Chen E.S.* (2025) Molecular pathological insights into tumorigenesis and progression of giant cell tumor of bone. J. Bone Oncol. 51, 100665. PMID: 40092569. 
  1. Koh H.Y.K., Lam U.T.F., Ban H.K. and Chen E.S.* (2024) Machine learning optimized DriverDetect software for high precision prediction of deleterious mutations in human cancers. Sci. Rep. 14, 22618. PMID: 39349509. 
  1. Lim K.K., Lam U.T.F., Li Y., Zeng Y.B., Yang H. and Chen E.S.* (2024) Set2 regulates Ccp1 and Swc2 to ensure centromeric stability by retargeting CENP-A. Nucleic Acids Res. 52, 4198-4214. 
  1. Lim K.K., Koh N.Z.H., Zeng Y.B., Chuan J.K., Raechell R. and Chen E.S.* (2023) Resistance to chemotherapeutic 5-fluorouracil conferred by modulation of heterochromatic integrity through Ino80 function in fission yeast. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 24, 10687. PMID: 37445861. 
  1. Lam U.T.F., Tan B.K.Y., Poh J.J.X. and Chen E.S.* (2022) Molecular mechanisms in governing genomic stability and tumor suppression by the SETD2 H3K36 methyltransferase. Epigenetics Chromatin 15, 17. PMID: 35581654. 
  1. Hoong B.Y.D., Gan Y.H., Liu H., and Chen E.S.* (2020) cGAS-STING pathway in oncogenesis and cancer therapeutics. Oncotarget. 2020 11(30):2930-2955. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.27673. PMID: 32774773 
  1. Ren B., and Chen E.S.* (2019) Regulation of centromeric heterochromatin in the cell cycle by phosphorylation of histone H3 tyrosine 41. Curr Genet. 2019 65(4):829-836. doi: 10.1007/s00294-019-00962-2. PMID: 30963244 
  1. Lim K.K., Nguyen T.T.T., Li A.Y., Yeo Y.P. and Chen E.S.* (2018) Histone H3 lysine 36 methyltransferase mobilizes NER factors to regulate tolerance against alkylating damage in fission yeast. Nucleic Acids Research 46, 5061-5074 
  1. Tan H.L., Lim K.K., Yang Q., Fan J.S., Sayed A.M.M., Low L.S., Ren B., Lim T.K., Lin Q., Mok Y.K., Liou Y.C. and Chen E.S.* (2018) Prolyl isomerization of the CENP-A N-terminus regulates centromeric integrity in fission yeast. Nucleic Acids Research 46, 1167-1179. 
  1. Ren B., Tan H.L., Nguyen T.T.T., Sayed A.M.M., Ying L., Mok Y.K., Yang H. and Chen E.S.* (2018) Regulation of transcriptional silencing and chromodomain protein localization at centromeric heterochromatin by histone H3 tyrosine 41 phosphorylation in fission yeast. Nucleic Acids Research 46, 189-202.