Profile
Teck obtained his BSc Hons in Biomedical Science (1996) followed by a PhD in Physiology from King's College London (2000). After two postdoctoral research positions funded by the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK working on epithelial tumour oncogenesis, he is currently a Professor of Molecular Oral Oncology at Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, QMUL. Teck has over 28 years of cell and molecular biology research and teaching experience. He has published over 60 papers in high impact journals (Nature Genetics, Molecular Cancer, Cancer Research, International Journal of Cancer, etc.) with joint funding from international collaborators across the world (Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, China, Australia). He is a steering committee member of the Barts Centre for Squamous Cancer which is a cross-institute collaborative centre at QMUL, bringing together research groups with diverse expertise from across the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry to tackle the problem of squamous cancer and drive clinical innovation.
Teck's pioneering research on FOXM1 as a key driver in human cancer initiation and role in stem cells led to a prestigious award 'Molecule of the Year 2010'. In 2020, he patented the world first FOXM1-based molecular diagnostic test named 'qMIDS' for early oral cancer detection. Recently he received an international award for excellence in molecular diagnostics of the 5th Venus International Healthcare Awards (2022). With his expertise in genomics, transcriptomics, biomarker selection & algorithm development for disease prediction, pharmacological drug screening, he aims to translate molecular signals coupled with AI to empower disease prediction and aid clinical decision. His current research focuses on transcriptome pattern recognition with an overarching aim of identifying biomarkers for personalising oral cancer treatment based on individual molecular signatures.
Teaching
Dr Teh has been involved in teaching and administration at QMUL since 2005. He is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy in recognition of attainment against the UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and learning support in higher education.
Dr Teh is involved in undergraduate (BDS, BSc, intercalated BSc) and postgraduate (MSc, DClinDent, PhD) teaching within Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry. In addition, he is involved in the development of each course curriculum, student feedbacks / reflection, and improvement of the lecture courses, setting exam questions, marking exam scripts and individual student support.
Research
Research Interests:
Dr Teh identified and delineated the mechanism of a key driver oncogene FOXM1 in human cancer which subsequently led to the Molecule of the Year 2010 Award. He later pioneered the world first FOXM1-based digital molecular cancer test - "quantitative malignancy diagnostic system (qMIDS)" for early detection oral cancer risk. The qMIDS test has been validated on several hundreds of oral cancer patients from UK, Norway, China and India with highly accurate results (>90%) compared to conventional histopathology. The qMIDS test requires only a tiny 1 mm (a grain of rice) tissue biopsy and test results could be obtained within 90 mins by measuring 16 genes to produce a malignancy index via an algorithm. The qMIDS test may potentially revolutionise oral cancer diagnosis in the future by providing a cost-effective, fully automated, high-throughput, rapid, quantitative, digital diagnostic system for managing ever increasing population of patients with oral lesions. Rapid segregation and release of majority (>90%) of low risk patients from surveillance whilst channelling funding and resources to treat high-risk patients will result in long-term benefits for both the patients and healthcare establishments.
His current research aims to identify exosome biomarkers for developing non-invasive salivary or blood-based diagnostic tests. New molecular signatures were found to characterise a clinically distinct UK population of oral cancer patients that may be predisposed to therapeutic resistance. Using a three-dimensional (3D) culture and xenograft tumour models, a novel mechanism regulated by FOXM1 was found to promote aberrant differentiation in squamous differentiation. He further discovered the squamous differentiation mechanism could be perturbed by serum lipids, retinoic acid and phenol red, raised important issues with using cell culture models. Using in vitro and in vivo mouse models, a new target tumour suppressor gene RASSF1A was found to be regulated via a YAP pathway in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells.
Tobacco is a risk factor for oral cancer - recent discovery using a zebrafish model identified a genetic locus (Slit3) regulates nicotine addiction in human could lead to new ways to prevent or treat tobacco addiction thereby eliminating a key risk factor for many cancers.
Molecular Pattern Recognition in Pre-Cancer Cells - all cellular processes are tightly regulated by a complex network of interacting biomolecules. Given that mRNA transcription precedes protein translation, change in gene expression levels often precedes visible pathological manifestation. Hence, transcriptome instability in the form of gene expression alterations serves as key signals for subsequent disease initiation and manifestation. Dr Teh hypothesised that if we could recognise and measure cancer-associated transcriptome instability, this could enable better understanding of cancer initiation and smarter way to predict cancer risk in otherwise asymptomatic patients. With the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI), this study could be translated into a clinically useful clinical AI tool for risk prediction before disease manifestation.
Molecular Patterns of Therapeutic Resistance in Cancer Cells. Multidrug resistance renders chemotherapeutic treatment failure in large proportion of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients requiring multimodal therapy involving chemotherapy in conjunction with surgery and/or radiotherapy. Molecular events conferring chemoresistance remain unclear. This project investigates a number of chemical, biological and physical strategies for targeting molecular vulnerabilities of chemoresistant cancer cells whilst sparing non-cancer cells. A large panel of chemical library consisting of synthetic and natural compounds will be screened using human cell culture models. We aim to identify the most potent multimodal anticancer therapy with the least toxicity to prevent or reverse chemoresistance in HNSCC patients.
