Lighten Up

How Professor Chong Pei Pei of Taylor's University is changing the future of cervical cancer detection

- Tania Jayatilaka.

Driven by her childhood experiences witnessing loved ones endure the devastating effects of cancer, Professor Dr Chong Pei Pei channelled her passion for medicine into a distinguished career in biomedical innovation.

"My aunt suffered from lung cancer when I was in primary school. She stayed with us briefly so that my mum could care for her. I witnessed firsthand how much she suffered," says Chong, who is a professor at Malaysia's Taylor's University in the School of Biosciences under the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.

"At that time, treatment options were not advanced like nowadays.

Another aunt of mine had a lifelong chronic autoimmune disease and she depended on steroids her whole life to suppress her overactive immune system." Despite her dreams of becoming a medical doctor, scholarship opportunities to study medicine were few and far between, though Chong eventually secured a scholarship to study architecture in the UK.