Kah Weng Steve Oh Ph.D

Dr. Steve Oh is Director, Stem Cell Bioprocessing and Senior Principal Scientist at the Bioprocessing Technology Institute, Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR). His passion is to develop the biomanufacturing processes that will undergird the production of stem cells for cell therapies. The team at BTI have developed integrated microcarrier-based bioprocesses for the expansion of human sources of a variety of adult stem cells (mesenchymal stem cells or MSC); pluripotent stem cells (embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells – hESC or hiPSC). The MSCs have been differentiated to bone and cartilage, while the hESC/hiPSC have been differentiated to neuroprogenitors and neurons, cardiomyocytes and blood cells in unified processes that range from 20 to 80 days. Two other important supportive functions are the development of cost-effective and simple serum free media for all of these stem cell cultures to the differentiated progenies, and the fabrication of biodegradable microcarriers for cell expansion in bioreactors and subsequent transplantation into bone and cartilage defects. In sum, the team have published 80 papers in this field and continue to push the boundaries of stem cell biomanufacturing to new frontiers in terms of scale of operations and complexity of monitoring. He also concurrently runs the Bioprocess Internship Programme that trains graduates for the growing biologics and cell therapy industry in Singapore.