Dr Yin Hoon Chew BEng MEng PhD

Dr Yin Hoon Chew

School of Mathematics
Postdoctoral Research Associate

Contact details

Email
y.h.chew@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
School of Mathematics
Watson Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Yin Hoon is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the School of Mathematics. Her work focuses on the application of mathematics and computer science to study complex biological systems. She is interested in developing mathematical models and computational tools to understand how organisms respond to the environment and use this knowledge to engineer biological systems with desired traits. She has worked with various biological systems including plants and mammalian cells. Her current research investigates the signalling pathways in cells that allow them to sense and respond to mechanical forces, which has implications on cancer drug efficacy.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Systems Biology, University of Edinburgh, 2013
  • MEng in Bioprocess Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2007
  • BEng (Hons) in Chemical-Bioprocess Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2005

Biography

Yin Hoon is a chemical engineer by training. Upon graduating from her bachelor's and master's degrees, she worked briefly as a research assistant at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. It was during this time that she developed an interest in modelling biological systems. After another brief tenure as a lecturer, she moved to the UK to pursue a PhD in Systems Biology at the University of Edinburgh, where she developed a multiscale model of Arabidopsis that integrates circadian gene network, carbon metabolism, organ growth and plant development. She later moved to Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York where she developed a prototype whole-cell computational model of human embryonic stem cells that incorporates large scale multi-omics, biochemical and physiological data. She returned to the UK and joined the University of Birmingham in 2021.

Research

Research Themes

  • Mechanistic modelling of biological systems
  • Multiscale and hybrid modelling
  • Molecular systems biology

Research Activity

Developing and using mathematical models and software tools to study biological systems, with the aims of designing biological systems with desired traits and improving medical treatment. 

Other activities

Member of The Society for Experimental Biology, 2012-present

Member of The International Society for Computational Biology, 2020-present

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Chew, YH 2022, 'The Arabidopsis Framework Model version 2 predicts the organism-level effects of circadian clock gene mis-regulation', in silico Plants.

Goldberg, AP, Szigeti, B, Chew, YH, Sekar, JA, Roth, YD & Karr, JR 2018, 'Emerging whole-cell modeling principles and methods', Current Opinion in Biotechnology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copbio.2017.12.013

Chew, YH, Seaton, DD & Millar, AJ 2017, 'Multi-scale modelling to synergise Plant Systems Biology and Crop Science', Field Crops Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2016.02.012

Waltemath, D, Karr, JR, Bergmann, FT, Chelliah, V, Hucka, M, Krantz, M, Liebermeister, W, Mendes, P, Myers, CJ, Pir, P, Alaybeyoglu, B, Aranganathan, NK, Baghalian, K, Bittig, AT, Burke, PEP, Cantarelli, M, Chew, YH, Costa, RS, Cursons, J, Czauderna, T, Goldberg, AP, Gomez, HF, Hahn, J, Hameri, T, Gardiol, DFH, Kazakiewicz, D, Kiselev, I, Knight-Schrijver, V, Knupfer, C, Konig, M, Lee, D, Lloret-Villas, A, Mandrik, N, Medley, JK, Moreau, B, Naderi-Meshkin, H, Palaniappan, SK, Priego-Espinosa, D, Scharm, M, Sharma, M, Smallbone, K, Stanford, NJ, Song, J-H, Theile, T, Tokic, M, Tomar, N, Toure, V, Uhlendorf, J, Varusai, TM, Watanabe, LH, Wendland, F, Wolfien, M, Yurkovich, JT, Zhu, Y, Zardilis, A, Zhukova, A & Schreiber, F 2016, 'Toward Community Standards and Software for Whole-Cell Modeling', IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1109/TBME.2016.2560762

Chew, YH, Wenden, B, Flis, A, Mengin, V, Taylor, J, Davey, CL, Tindal, C, Thomas, H, Ougham, HJ, De Reffye, P, Stitt, M, Williams, M, Muetzelfeldt, R, Halliday, KJ & Millar, AJ 2015, 'Correction: Multiscale digital Arabidopsis predicts individual organ and whole-organism growth (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (2014) 111 (E4127-E4136))', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1506983112

Chew, YH, Smith, RW, Jones, HJ, Seaton, DD, Grima, R & Halliday, KJ 2014, 'Mathematical Models Light Up Plant Signaling', The Plant Cell. https://doi.org/10.1105/TPC.113.120006

Chew, YH, Wenden, B, Flis, A, Mengin, V, Taylor, J, Davey, CL, Tindal, C, Thomas, H, Ougham, HJ, De Reffye, P, Stitt, M, Williams, M, Muetzelfeldt, R, Halliday, KJ & Millar, AJ 2014, 'Multiscale digital Arabidopsis predicts individual organ and whole-organism growth', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1410238111

Chew, YH, Wilczek, AM, Williams, M, Welch, SM, Schmitt, J & Halliday, KJ 2012, 'An augmented Arabidopsis phenology model reveals seasonal temperature control of flowering time', New Phytologist. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2012.04069.x

Chew, YH & Halliday, KJ 2011, 'A stress-free walk from Arabidopsis to crops', Current Opinion in Biotechnology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copbio.2010.11.011

Chew, YH, Shia, YL, Lee, CT, Majid, FAA, Chua, LS, Sarmidi, MR & Aziz, RA 2009, 'Modeling of glucose regulation and insulin-signaling pathways', Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mce.2009.01.018

Chew, YH, Shia, YL, Lee, CT, Majid, FAA, Chua, LS, Sarmidi, MR & Aziz, RA 2009, 'Modeling of oscillatory bursting activity of pancreatic beta-cells under regulated glucose stimulation', Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mce.2009.03.005

Chew, YH, Lee, CT, Sarmidi, MR, Aziz, RA & Razali, F 2008, 'External mass transfer model for the hydrolysis of palm olein using immobilized lipase', Food and Bioproducts Processing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fbp.2008.02.001

Conference contribution

Goldberg, AP, Chew, YH & Karr, JR 2016, Toward scalable whole-cell modeling of human cells. in SIGSIM-PADS 2016 - Proceedings of the 2016 Annual ACM Conference on Principles of Advanced Discrete Simulation. https://doi.org/10.1145/2901378.2901402

Other contribution

Chew, YH, Seaton, DD, Mengin, V, Flis, A, Mugford, ST, Smith, AM, Stitt, M & Millar, AJ 2017, Linking circadian time to growth rate quantitatively via carbon metabolism.. https://doi.org/10.1101/105437

Review article

Chew, YH & Karr, JR 2021, 'Centralizing data to unlock whole-cell models', Current Opinion in Systems Biology, vol. 27, 100353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coisb.2021.06.004

View all publications in research portal