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 are cancer biology, Immunology/inflammation and biomarkers discovery. The research focus is to understand the complex cell-cell interaction networks that influence cancer aggressiveness. While it is clear that tumor cell killing is reduced in the presence of an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME), it is still uncertain as to what cellular events between B/T cell interactions that are likely to favour the progression cancer and may affect the clinical response to novel therapeutics targeting tested in clinical trials.  In addition, she has significant interest in dissecting the dynamic system in the cellular interplay, their spatial locations and patterns and molecular functional mechanism in differentiating patient outcomes which could guide precision medicine strategies in oncology. In 2025, Yvonne a published the discovery of spatial context based on the proximity of cytotoxic T cells to Galectin9-expressing tumor cells is a crucial factor in creating an “effective” functional TME. (Kam et al, Cell Mol Immunol. 2025). Furthermore, she is currently investigating the post-translational modifications in regulating the translocation of subcellular proteins that could offer potential for targeted therapies to reduce “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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