Nanyang Technology University

Academic Profile
Prof Law Sai-Kit Alex
Director of Biomedical Sciences and Chinese Medicine, School of Biological Sciences
Professor 
Division of Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology 
School of Biological Sciences 
College of Science 



Email: ALAW@ntu.edu.sg
Phone: (+65)65921718/63162851 
Office: SBS-01s-50/03n-27 
Education
  • PhD(Biology) Harvard University 1978
  • BS(Hons) California Institute of Technology 1972
Biography
Professor Alex Law was born in Hong Kong in 1949. After secondary school he went to the California Institute of Technology and obtained his BSc degree in Physics in 1972. He switched to Biology and studied at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. In his thesis he described the covalent binding of the complement protein C3 to all cell surfaces, thus providing an explanation to how the immune system can potentially attack all targets including bacteria, viral infected cells, cancer cells, or immune aggregates. He was awarded the PhD degree in 1978. He continued to work on the chemical details of this reaction. After three years at the Washington University Medical School at St. Louis, he joined Professor Rodney Porter's MRC Immunochemistry Unit in Oxford. He became one of the first Lister Institute Research Fellows in 1982, and became a full member of the MRC Immunochemistry Unit in 1986. In 1996, he described the full chemical reaction mechanism of the covalent binding of complement proteins to cell surfaces, thus bringing this research topic into a satisfactory conclusion. In the mid-1980s, he started to work on the integrin adhesion molecules and later became one of the leading experts in the inherited disease of leukocyte adhesion deficiency – in which one of the integrin genes was defective. In 2002 he was recruited to NTU to help building the School of Biological Sciences. He is currently the Acting Chair and Associate Chair of Research of the School of Biological Sciences. He is also the first and current Director of the CN Yang Scholars Programme, which focuses on the training of the top 50 undergraduate students in Science and Engineering in Research. He has published over 80 papers with over 3,000 citations.
Research Interests
The main interest remains in the understanding of the relationship between protein conformational change and function. In particular, the experimental work focuses on the integrins including the analysis of mutations found in patients with leukocyte adhesion deficicney type-1.
Research Grant
  • A*STAR Biomedical Research Council (2003-)
  • A*STAR Biomedical Research Council (2007-)
  • Academic Research Fund Tier 1 (2008-)
  • Start Up Grant (2012-)
Current Projects
  • Comparative studies of the structure and adhesion properties of the aLB2, aMb2, aXb2 integrin, and the crystallographic studies of the b2 and b3 integrin
  • Interactions of the leg domains of the B2 integrin subunits
  • Mutation, Active Molecules and Complexity In Biological Systems
  • Short Term Research in Biological Sciences
  • The protein chemistry of integrin adhesion molecules
Selected Publications
  • Parthasarathy, K., Lin, X., Tan, S.M., Law, S.K.A. and Torres, J. (2008). Transmembrane helices that form two opposite homodimeric interactions: an asparagine scan study of αM and β2 integrins. Protein science, 17, 930-938.
  • Cheng, M., Foo, S.Y., Shi, M.L., Tang, R.H., Kong. L.S., Law, S.K.A., and Tan, S.M. (2007). Mutation of a conserved asparagine in the I-like domain promotes constitutively active integrins αLß2 and αIIbß3. J. Biol. Chem., 282, 18225-28232.
  • Li, Y.F., Tang, R.H., Puan, K.J., Law, S.K.A., and Tan, S.M. (2007). The cytosolic protein talin induces an intermediate affinity integrin αLß2. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 282, 24310-24319.
  • Vararattanavech, A., Tang, M.L., Li, H.Y., Wong, C.H., Law, S.K.A., Torres, J. and Tan, S.M. (2007). Permissive transmembrane heterodimerization is required for the expression of a functional integrin. Biochemical Journal, 410, 495-502.
  • Uzel, G., Tng, E., Rosenzweig, S.D., Hsu, A.O., Shaw, JM., Horwitz M.E., Linton G.F., Anderson, S.M., Kirby, M.R., Oliverira, J.B., Brown, M.R., Fleisher, T.A., Law, S.K.A., and Holland, S.M. (2007). Reversion mutations in patients with leukocyte adhesion deficiency type I (LAD-1). Blood, 111, 209-218.
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