PETALING JAYA, May 15 (Sin Chew Daily) — Associate Professor Dr Chan Yoke Fun, head of Medical Microbiology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaysia, is one of the ten finalists for the 2020 Asean–US Science Prize for Women.

Passionate about training the next generation, Dr Chan is educating her community about the spread of infectious diseases.

Her research focuses on how enterovirus A71 has caused hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) and brain infections in children.

According to the visuals released, Dr Chan said she was honored to be one of the finalists representing Malaysia. She saw the award as providing more opportunities to bring science from laboratory to the community.

"I find such sharing is important. It encourages people to have interest in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM)," she said.

Dr Chan also stressed that prevention is better than cure and hence places her focus on developing vaccines for infectious diseases.

"My team has developed the enterovirus A71 vaccines through the codon deoptimization strategy. These vaccines have shown good immune responses in animals," she added.

On HFMD, she said she had two patents for developing antiviral peptides and morpholinos.

"I am working with computer scientists to study the distribution of HFMD to further understand how the disease spreads," she said.

In the community, Dr Chan works with experts in early childhood education to develop education models in local languages to boost HFMD awareness. She also works with Asia Pacific Network of Enterovirus Surveillance (APNES) to enhance virus surveillance in Asean.