Prof.KAM Ngar Woon, Yvonne

About me

KAM Ngar Woon, Yvonne KAM Ngar Woon, Yvonne 甘雅媛

B.Sc. (Pharm.) (Hons.), Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
School of Pharmacy
Faculty of Medicine
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Tel:(852) 3943 5936
Fax:(852) 2603 5295
Email: yvonnekam@cuhk.edu.hk

Personal Details

Dr Ngar Woon Kam attended University College London for her bachelor’s Pharmacology degree and obtained her PhD in William Harvey Research Institute in the Department of Experimental Medicine and Rheumatology in 2012. She was awarded for the best poster presenter of research showcase in the Year of 2013 William Harvey Day for her PhD study on immunosuppressive capacity of stromal cells in autoinflammatory disease. She subsequently moved to Hong Kong and joined as Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2016, she joined the Department of Clinical Oncology in the University of Hong Kong as Postdoctoral Research Fellow and became Research Assistant Professor in 2021 in Laboratory of Synthetic Chemistry and Chemical biology under the Health@InnoHK Program launched by the Innovation and Technology Commission.

 

Research

Research Interests

Yvonne’s research interests span cancer biology, immunology/inflammation, and biomarker discovery. The research focus is on unraveling the complex networks of cell-cell interactions that drive cancer aggressiveness. While it is well-known that an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) impairs tumor cell killing, the specific cellular events—particularly those involving B and T cell interactions—that promote cancer progression and influence clinical responses to emerging therapeutics remain poorly understood. Yvonne is particularly interested in dissecting the dynamic interplay between immune and tumor cells, including their spatial organization, interaction patterns, and molecular mechanisms, to better understand how these factors contribute to patient outcomes. This knowledge could inform precision oncology strategies. In 2025, she published a paper demonstrating that the spatial proximity of cytotoxic T cells to Galectin-9–expressing tumor cells is a critical determinant of an “effective” functional TME (Kam et al., Cellular & Molecular Immunology, 2025). Currently, her research also explores how post-translational modifications regulate the subcellular translocation of proteins, with the goal of identifying new therapeutic targets that minimize “on-target/off-tumor” side effects.

Grants

Research grants:

  1. Bridging Grant with Noxopharm – Funding of the Australian Academy of Technology &Engineering Idronoxil in nasopharyngeal carcinoma: Exploring its therapeutic potential for the development of a novel targeted therapy AUD $50000 Principle Investigator 2019
  2. Health Research FundFull Grant The Therapeutic Effects of Blocking Galectin 9- mediated Immunoinhibition in a Novel Adoptive T Cell Therapy for Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma $1214520 Co-Investigator 2019
  3. General Research Fund (GRF) Tumour Heterogeneity and Clonal Evolution in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma $600000 Co-Investigator 2018
  4. Health and Medical Research Fund – Peripheral immunological response to treatment with checkpoint inhibitor in recurrent/metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma and correlation with clinical response and adverse effects $1125384 Co-Investigator 2018

 

Publications

Representative Publications

  1. Kam NW, Lau CY, Lai PH, Dai W, VHF Lee, DLW Kwong. Cell-associated galectin 9 interacts with cytotoxic T cells confers resistance to tumor killing in nasopharyngeal carcinoma through autophagy activation. Cellular & Molecular Immunology 2025 Mar;22(3):260-281
  2. Kam NW, Laczka O, Li X, Wilkinson J, Hung D, Lai S.P.H., Wu K.C.; Tsao S.W.; Dai W.; Che CM, Lee VHF, Kwong DLW. ENOX2 inhibition enhances infiltration of effector memory T-cell and mediates response to chemotherapy in immune-quiescent naso-pharyngeal carcinoma. J Adv Res. 2024 Feb;56:69-86. doi: 10.1016/j.jare.2023.04.001. Epub 2023 Apr 13. PMID: 37061217
  3. Kam NW, Lo AWI, Hung DTY, Ko H, Wu KC, Kwong DLW, Lam KO, Leung TW, Che CM, Lee VHF Shift in Tissue-Specific Immune Niches and CD137 Expression in Tuberculoma of Pembrolizumab-Treated Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Patients. Cancers (Basel). 2024 Jan 8;16(2):268. doi: 10.3390/cancers16020268.PMID: 38254759
  4. Chuwdhury GS, Guo Y, Chiang CL, Lam KO, Kam NW, Liu Z, Dai W. ImmuneMirror: A machine learning-based integrative pipeline and web server for neoantigen prediction. Brief Bioinform. 2024 Jan 22;25(2):bbae024. doi: 10.1093/bib/bbae024. PMID: 38343325
  5. CL Chiang, TC Lam, CB Li , SK Chan, A Helali, YP Lee, HT Law, DY Zheng , AWI Lo, NW Kam, WS Li, KW Cheung, CH Chow, PC Chan, WY Lai, WM Lee, FMS Kong, WT Ng, DLW Kwong 1, WM Lee .Efficacy, safety, and correlative biomarkers of bintrafusp alfa in recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal cancer patients: a phase II clinical trial. Lancet Reg Health West Pac. 2023 Sep 6;40:100898. doi: 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2023.100898. eCollection 2023 Nov.PMID: 37701718
  6. Kam NW, Wu KC, Dai W, Wang Y, Yan LYC, Shakya R, Khanna R, Qin Y, Law S, Lo AWI, Lee VHF, Guan XY, Kwong DLW. Peritumoral B cells drive proangiogenic responses in HMGB1-enriched esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Angiogenesis. 2022 May;25(2):181-203. doi: 10.1007/s10456-021-09819-0. Epub 2021 Oct 6.PMID: 34617194
  7. Wang Y, Lyu Z, Qin Y, Wang X, Sun L, Zhang Y, Gong L, Wu S, Han S, Tang Y, Jia Y, Kwong DL, Kam NW#, Guan XY# (2020) FOXO1 promotes tumor progression by increased M2 macrophage infiltration in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Theranostics. 2020 Sep 16;10(25):11535-11548. doi: 10.7150/thno.45261. eCollection 2020.PMID: 33052231

(#co-corresponding)

Supplementary Information

 

Professional Associations

      • American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
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