Dr Jodi Law Woan-Fei is a lecturer at JCSMHS Monash University Malaysia. She is the Leader of Next-Generation Precision Medicine and Therapeutics Research Group (NMeT) and a Section Leader (Diagnostics & Pathogens) of the Microbiome and Bioresource Research Strength (MBRS). She is a science graduate who received first class for her honours degree of Bachelor of Science (Medical Bioscience) from Monash University. Currently, she holds a PhD in Medicine (Biomedical Science), awarded by Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University in 2019. The research Dr Jodi Law conducted for her PhD involved discovering the diversity and biosystematics of novel Streptomyces from mangrove in Sarawak. She is actively involved in various research activities and mentoring roles. She is a passionate researcher with great interest in expanding her research. She has been studying microbes of environmental origins, and now she is looking forward to exploring the microbes from the human body (human microbiome).

Dr Jodi Law embarked on her research journey in 2014 with her honours degree project, focusing on detecting foodborne pathogens from seafood. During her honours study, she found her passion in research, which eventually sparked her interest in pursuing her PhD, with a project focusing on discovering beneficial and novel microbes from nature—mangrove forest in her hometown Sarawak.

She completed her doctoral thesis entitled “Diversity and Biosystematics of Novel Streptomyces from Mangrove in Sarawak”. The significant outcomes of her research include the discovery of two novel Streptomyces strains: Streptomyces monashensis (referring to Monash University) and Streptomyces colonosanans (referring to colon-healing) with potent anti-colon cancer and antioxidant activities.

She is trained in biosystematics studies of Streptomyces and exploring their beneficial biological activities (e.g., anticancer, antioxidant, antibacterial, probiotic strains), which can be the sources of potential drug candidates to improve human health and wellbeing. Her research interests also include studying the relationships of the human microbiome with health and disease as well as understanding their therapeutic implications. She firmly believes that it is crucial to detect and identify bacterial pathogens from the microbiome associated with disease development and to generate potential microbiome-based treatment options.

My supervision interests include the following areas:

- Microbiology (Bacteria detection and identification)

- Microbial bioprospecting

- Molecular biology

- Antimicrobial-resistant pathogens detection

- Environmental and human microbiome

For more information on available research project, please kindly refer to:

Microbiome & Bioresource Research Strength (MBRS) Projects