Dr Uma Palanisamy is Associate Professor in Biochemistry at the Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University Malaysia. Dr Uma completed her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and furthered to obtain an MPhil from the University of Malaya. She pursued her PhD at Cambridge on a project designing affinity ligands for the selective binding of the glycoprotein pharmaceuticals. She presented her work orally at the 12th International Conference on Affinity Techniques in Kalmar, Sweden in 1997 and was awarded First Prize in the Young Scientists section. Prior to joining Monash, Dr Uma was in SIRIM for a period of 17 years, where she has carried out extensive work to aid natural product research in Malaysia. Her research expertise are in screening local natural resources for its cosmeceutical, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical content and to develop medium-throughput screening techniques particularly to identify antioxidants, antipsoriatics, antiarthritics, antiglycemic, antifungals - to name a few. She was also attached to a Japanese Pharmaceutical company for a period of six months where she purified antifungals and immunomodulant bioactives from soil microorganisms. Dr Uma has to her name a number of innovation awards, four patents and a number of publications.