17 February 2016

Jeffrey Cheah Distinguished Speakers Series for the Year of Fire Monkey

In the year of the Fire Monkey, the Jeffrey Cheah Distinguished Speakers Series will continue its aim to share knowledge and enlighten the Malaysian public. To kick start the year was a medical lecture on Gerontology, entitled “Is Age Modifiable? What can We Learn from Population Studies?” by Professor Khaw Kay-Tee. The lecture on 13 January 2016 saw an overwhelming turn out of over 350 attendees from diverse backgrounds, including pre-university and university students; doctors and nurses; non-clinical members of the public.

Professor Khaw Kay-Tee

Professor Khaw captured the audience’s attention with a good blend of seriousness and amusement on the topic. She shared her findings to date on the potentially modifiable lifestyle and psychological factors of good health, drawing examples from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition in Norfolk. The country with a population of 25,000 men and women aged 40-79 was first surveyed 1993-1997 and have been followed up to the present state of health.

Professor Khaw shared some tips on maintaining a healthy lifestyle: a daily glass of wine, good amount of exercise including healthy walking, avoid smoking and enjoy a controllable amount of stress. Tan Siew Leng, a regular JCDSS participant in her 40s lauded, “It was out of my expectation that a medical lecture can be fun. Professor Khaw was amazing!”

Professor Khaw receiving a token of appreciation from Tan Sri Dr Jeffrey Cheah

The question and answer session at the end of the lecture saw an active participation from the audience with some interesting questions drawing much laughter. Some of the questions posed were: Does vaping cause the same harm as smoking to aging? Does sexuality help modify age and the effectiveness of placenta injections.

Professor Khaw replied that there were no hard evidence documented on the effects of vaping and placenta injections. Interestingly according to the regional study in the UK, Professor Khaw quipped “Married men live longer than single men, but married women live shorter lives than single women.”

An informal meeting between Professor Khaw (in red) and top management of Sunway University before her lecture.

Malaysia-born Professor Khaw is Professor of Clinical Gerontology, University of Cambridge. She was trained in medicine at Girton College, University of Cambridge and St. Mary’s Hospital, London (now Imperial College) and in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, with subsequent clinical academic posts in the University of London and University of California San Diego. She was the first woman to be appointed to a chair in clinical medicine in the University of Cambridge in 1989 and was awarded CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2003.

In 2014 Professor Khaw was designated as a Jeffrey Cheah Professorial Fellow in Gonville and Caius College. With the appointment, Professor Khaw will be visiting Sunway regularly to share knowledge. Her public lecture under the JCDSS was just a start for Sunwayians and Malaysians to learn from Professor Khaw.

From left: Professor Pua Eng Chong, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Sunway University; Professor Peter Heard, Provost and Dean, Sunway University’s Research and Enterprise Office and Faculty of Science and Technology; Professor Khaw Kay-Tee, Jeffrey Cheah Professorial Fellow and Professor of Clinical Gerontology, Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge; Professor Graeme Wilkinson, Vice-Chancellor of Sunway University; Professor Jarlath Ronayne, Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah Distinguished Professor and Founding Vice-Chancellor of Sunway University

Serving as a platform for intellectual discourse and lifelong learning, the JCDSS at Sunway University is a series of free admission public lectures which encourages people from all walks of life to learn from outstanding experts on a variety of issues.

Since 2005, the JCDSS is one of many activities which Sunway University has embarked on to further boost its social responsibility efforts through education. More than approximately 80 lectures have been organised with notable speakers such as prominent Australian historian of Asia Professor Wang Gungwu, United Nations Special Advisor to Ban Ki Moon Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Nobel Prize winners Professor Peter C. Doherty and Barry J. Marshall.

To join the mailing list for updates on the Jeffrey Cheah Distinguished Speakers Series (JCDSS), please visit http://sunway.edu.my/university/JCDSS

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