The Single Cell Spatial Analysis Program (SCSAP)
is excited to host a special seminar
Featuring: Joe Poh Sheng YEONG, MBBS, PhD, FRCPath
Principal Investigator at IMCB (A*STAR) and Singapore General Hospital
“Working toward cancer care in 2030 : AI+X for Precision Medicine 2.0, Population Health, Aging and Global Health Impact”
ABSTRACT:
The growing cancer patient demographic far exceeds the limited availability of clinical trials, with delays in trial matching and patient recruitment contributing to a >90% trial failure rate and an annual loss of >USD 9 billion. Immune profiling, including immunohistochemistry (IHC) and multiplex IHC, is essential for efficient trial recruitment and biomarker discovery to identify patient subsets who may benefit from trials. However, its widespread adoption is hindered by high costs, technical complexity, limited tissue availability, and labour-intensive processes. Given our track record in spatial biology and developing AI tools to advance drug development in clinical trial (on-going Phase 1b), it demonstrates our ability to integrate cutting-edge technology and positions us uniquely to innovate effective solutions. The current trend of combining immunotherapy with antibody-drug conjugates increases the need for biomarker testing, both individually and in combination, to guide therapeutic decision. With challenges such as limited tissue availability, high cost, and manpower constraints, artificial intelligence (AI) presents a promising solution. In this talk, I will discuss how to accelerate the process of patient triage during clinical trial recruitment by developing a prototype that leverages on our AI-guided concept known as H&E 2.0, for the screening of multiple actionable and clinically relevant predictive biomarkers for clinical trials.
In the horizon of spatial medicine, using a recently published study (Nature Cover Story, April 2025), I will also demonstrate how to leverage proteogenomics to provide critical insights into the TME and guide clinical decision-making. Spatial proteogenomics integrates spatial proteomics and proteogenomics using multiple technologies such as multiplex IHC/IF and LC-MS/MS technology to map protein expression within tissue regions while linking it to genomic and transcriptomic variations. This approach goes beyond traditional proteomics, uncovering not only canonical proteins but also mutant and “dark” proteins —small, noncanonical proteins critical to tumor progression and immune modulation. By providing spatial and molecular insights into tumor heterogeneity and immune interactions, spatial proteogenomics offers unparalleled potential for advancing cancer biology and precision oncology – especially for new class of drug development. We combined AI with dark proteomics and longitudinal population-scale data (>10,000 individuals, 16-year follow-up), integrating demographic and behavioral dynamics over time. This enabled a scalable scoring system that continuously monitors health status and predicts critical illness and mortality more than five years ahead.
On the other hand, Appropriate and Value-Based Care (AVBC) is a critical terminology in the new era of Precision Medicine. We hereby introduce a “Pseudo-time concept” to provide AVBC in an AI-powered manner to provide better, timely and affordable care across the world while create all-wins scenarios not only to clinicians, private sectors and patients & families.
BIO:
Dr. Joe Yeong is a National funded clinician-innovator and immunopathologist (out-licensed 5 IP assets) focused on overcoming resistance to cancer immunotherapy using advanced technologies and artificial intelligence, with a core vision to bridge immunology and pathology. He is a pioneer in spatial technologies, has translated assays into clinical practice (from bench to bedside) or/and market more than 5 times, and has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers (Top 2% Scientist), delivering more than 100 invited international talks. His cancer immunology research has been supported by national, international, and industry-sponsored funding exceeding 25 million dollars since 2017.
He has served as a committee member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), co-organizer of the World Immunotherapy Council (WIC) and the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), and leading the multiplex immunofluorescence expert consensus meetings. He is a founding Program Chair of CLINICCAI-MICCAI, a founding board member of MICCAI SIG-ComPath, and a board member of the Asian Society of Digital Pathology. He holds editorial roles with Nature Springer, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC), Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO, ASCO), AACR Journals, and World Scientific (Chief Editor).
Dr. Yeong serves as Executive Secretary of the Singapore Society of Oncology–Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium, Co-Lead for Education and Diagnostics at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Cell Therapy Centre, and Advisor for Spatial Technologies at the Cancer Discovery Hub, National Cancer Centre. In 2023, he co-founded the World Immunotherapy Council APAC Chapter to advance tumour immunology and cancer immunotherapy education, research, and collaboration across Asia-Pacific.
He is also a regular reviewer for funding agencies in over 15 countries across five continents and for leading journals including Cell, The Lancet, Nature Medicine, and Nature
