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Professor Dean Ho

Director, The Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM),
National University of Singapore

Professor Dean Ho is currently Provost’s Chair Professor, Director of The Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM) at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine; Director of The N.1 Institute for Health (N.1), and Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the National University of Singapore.


Prof Ho and collaborators successfully developed and validated CURATE.AI, a powerful artificial intelligence platform that personalizes human treatment for a broad spectrum of indications ranging from oncology, to digital therapeutics and infectious diseases, among others. His team also developed IDentif.AI to optimise combination therapy design against SARS-CoV-2 and to address antimicrobial resistance. Recently, his team unveiled WisDM Green, a technology platform to sustainably address food security and optimise yield while preserving nutritional content.


Prof. Ho is an elected Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors (NAI), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and the Royal Society of Chemistry. He was also recently named to the HIMSS Future50 Class of 2021 for his internationally-recognised leadership in digital health. Prof. Ho is also a Subgroup Lead in the World Health Organization (WHO) Working Group for the regulation of AI for Health.


Prof. Ho is an author, with Dr. Agata Blasiak and Yoann Sapanel, of the forthcoming book, Medicine Without Meds, which is being released internationally. The book serves as a blueprint for a broad community – from business leaders and venture capitalists to healthcare systems – on how to accelerate practice-changing innovation to patients and caregivers. All author proceeds from the book will be benefiting the WisDM Patient Impact Fund.


Prof Ho has appeared on the National Geographic Channel Program “Known Universe,” and Channel News Asia’s “The Hidden Layer: Healthcare Trailblazers”. His discoveries have been featured on CNN, The Economist, National Geographic, Forbes, Washington Post, NPR and other international news outlets.
Prof. Ho is a recipient of the Tech Heroes from Crisis Pathfinder Award from the Singapore Computer Society, NSF CAREER Award, Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Award, and V Foundation for Cancer Research Scholar Award, among others. He has also served as the President of the Board of Directors of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS), a leading global drug development organization.

Abstract: Medicine Made for You

Optimising health to healthcare: This is the vision of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM) and the N.1 Institute for Health (N.1) at NUS. Using powerful AI-based approaches from our team, we have achieved life-saving patient outcomes in oncology, all the way to optimising food security, nutrition, and physical performance. Importantly, our work has shown that, in the context of personalised medicine, we can harness only a patient’s own data to optimise only their own care, dynamically. In the context of health optimisation, pandemic preparedness, and food security, we have developed regimens that can achieve substantial improvements in efficacy or output compared to traditional approaches. We will discuss our latest technology programmes and human clinical trials that have accelerated our pathway towards the personalised and optimised health and healthcare of tomorrow.

These include:

  • PRECISE CURATE: Harnessing only a patient’s own data to optimise their care, dynamically.
  • IDentif.AI: Achieving global health security through AI-optimised pandemic preparedness.
  • WisDM Green: Food security, nutrition, and performance optimisation.