Dr Chew Weng Cheng

Profile

I am a Mautner BHF Career Development fellow based within the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine (LICAMM). I obtained a first-class honour in Bachelor of Biomedical Science in January 2015. Following my undergraduate degree, I studied a doctoral degree in infection and immunity jointly awarded by the University of Liverpool and Chulalongkorn University (Thailand). Subsequently, I arrived at the University of Leeds (December 2018 – November 2021) as a post-doctoral researcher to work on heart failure with and without diabetes. In March 2021, I was awarded an inaugural fellowship – Mautner BHF Career Development fellowship as a first step to establish his own research group.

I have experience and am interested in using multi-omics big data approaches for better understanding of single and multi-disease phenomena with a view to reducing the suffering from common communicable and non-communicable diseases. I have experience in these approaches through my work on vaccine candidates for malaria; Plasmodium vivax and my recent work on heart failure with and without diabetes. Through these apparently independent areas of work I have seen an important opportunity for a research strategy bringing together understanding of infectious and cardiovascular diseases.

Research interests

I made progress with my recent exciting work on COVID-19 and identified a gene known to be important in mechanical properties of the endothelial cell membrane. Transient Receptor Potential Cation Channel of Subfamily C Family 1 (TRPC1) is suggested to mediate mechanical responses of membranes, which could be relevant to infection.

Excitingly, I found that there are significant previously unknown links for ion channels with cardiometabolic diseases. Based on this foundation, I aim to build a new research group focused on the novel hypothesis that genes regulating membrane mechanical properties are factors determining co-susceptibilities to infections and cardiometabolic diseases and risk of more severe outcomes. I will test this hypothesis using big data genetic approaches and then explore further by iterative more in-depth big data analysis combined with wet laboratory experiments performed with collaborators using patient tissue samples.

Qualifications

• BSc Hons
• PhD
• FHEA

Professional memberships

• Physiological Society
• Biophysical Society

Student education

Tutor for Introduction to Medical Sciences (IMS) module. I supervise undergraduate and postgraduate students. 

Research groups and institutes

• Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine
• Discovery and Translational Science
• Multidisciplinary Cardiovascular Research Centre