Biophysical Society Bulletin | July/August 2021

Biophysicist in Profile

Siti Ngalim Areas of Research Biointerface, especially surface patterning at micro- and nanoscale and cell adhesion

Institution Universiti Sains Malaysia

At-a-Glance

Siti Ngalim , Senior Lecturer at Universiti Sains Malaysia, grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and returned home after studying in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Outside of her own research, she has worked over the last few years to connect and expand her local biophysics community by founding a biophysical society in the region and planning events to facilitate network- ing and collaboration.

Siti Ngalim

Siti Ngalim grew up in Ampang, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. Her parents were from large families, with more than 10 siblings each. Neither attended secondary schools, as they were needed at home to take care of younger siblings and to help with farming. When Ngalim was growing up, her father worked as a truck driver and her mother cared for the home and children, selling sweet snacks called “kuih” for extra income. “Though they are not well educated, my parents follow the news on the television and the radio and have discussions about things going on around us,” she shares. “My mom is good at maths. Whenever we had to buy ingredients for the kuih at the supermarket, I tried to compete with her at the speed of her basic math skills, but I could never win. My dad is into arts and crafts, alternative medicine, world history, and religion—including controversial and taboo subjects that most locals his age would not want to discuss. Surely, the conversations I had with them when I was young made me a curious person.” Ngalim lived with her parents until she was 12 years old and then in public boarding schools until age 19, when she finished college preparatory courses. She enjoyed science as a child because there were more pictures and infographics than words in her textbook, which appealed to her as a visual thinker. She also had two uncles, one of whom was a medical doctor and the other an engineer, who she viewed as well-off financially which made pursuing a science degree seem like a good choice. She received scholarships to pursue higher education, en- rolling at Pennsylvania State University where she majored in biotechnology and minored in microbiology. “During my senior year in my undergraduate, I remember not wanting to see only bands (as in electrophoresis images) all my life. I wanted to venture into more applied sciences and engineer- ing,” she says. “That was why I went for a master’s degree in nanomedicine, where I researched bone growth on chemically etched micropatterns on a titanium alloy.”

She earned that master’s degree from Newcastle Universi- ty in the United Kingdom, followed by her PhD in pathology from the University of New South Wales in Australia, where she researched cell migration in the presence of soluble and immobilized biomolecules. When she was looking for a tenure-track position in Malaysia, the government was undertaking an initiative to ensure that all professors at public universities held PhDs. Because of this, she was able to be hired without first holding a postdoc- toral position. In 2015, she was trained in Förster Resonance Energy Transfer at Kyoto University. A few years later in 2017 she undertook a one-year research attachment with E. Ada Cavalcanti-Adam at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany. “There, I received training on nanopatterning called diblock micellar nanolithography (BCMN) whereby soluble proteins are immobilized on uni- formly spaced nanogold,” she explains. Cavalcanti-Adam describes her as determined and a positive presence in the lab: “A most memorable quality is her good spirit at work—positive and extremely helpful for all the lab members!” Trying to establish a new lab immediately after receiving her PhD while also applying for grants (and figuring out what grant agencies were looking for) was a major challenge, and the funding challenges continue, as they do for many. “As always in life, like we say in our local Malaysian-English slang: ‘No money, no talk,’” she says. “Even when the money is there, the budget is tight. I realized that optimism helps. Any rejections or failures—publications, grant applications, research challenges, etc.—are demotivating, but then you fix them, reach out for help, and keep on trying.” She is now a Senior Lecturer at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Bertam Campus in Penang, Malaysia. The most rewarding aspect of her career is that she is always learning new things. “The fact that I’m learning every day, it’s very humbling,” she shares. “Plenty of jargon too, as biophysical research involves

July/August 2021

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