Rate My Professor Yong Sze

Dr. Ong Yong Sze is a Lecturer in the School of Pharmacy at Monash University Malaysia. She earned her Bachelor of Biomedical Science in 2013 and PhD in Pharmacology in 2019 from Universiti Putra Malaysia. During her doctoral studies, she received the Erasmus Mundus SMARTLINK scholarship, which funded an 18-month research fellowship at the University of Porto’s Faculty of Pharmacy in Portugal. Since completing her PhD, she has been bridging her academic training with innovative research at Monash University Malaysia.

Ong Yong Sze’s research specializes in cancer nanomedicine, natural product-based therapeutics, and toxicity, safety, and environmental health. In cancer nanomedicine, she engineers targeted drug delivery systems using lipid-based nanoparticles incorporated with functional materials such as magnetic nanoparticles and natural anticancer agents for tumor-specific delivery via stimuli-responsive mechanisms to reduce toxicity and resistance. Her work on natural product-based therapeutics explores plant-derived bioactive compounds that disrupt cancer progression including cell growth and metastasis with minimal side effects, often synergizing with nanocarriers for enhanced stability and delivery. Additionally, she conducts preclinical safety assessments of nanoparticle biocompatibility, dose-dependent toxicity of natural compounds, and environmental impacts of pollutants like microplastics on early-life exposure and developmental health. She has produced key publications such as 'Magnetic-guided targeted delivery of zerumbone/SPION co-loaded in nanostructured lipid carrier into breast cancer cells' (2023, Journal of Drug Delivery Science and Technology), 'How far have we explored fungi to fight cancer?' (2022, Seminars in Cancer Biology), 'Emerging nanotheranostics for 5-fluorouracil in cancer therapy: A systematic review on efficacy, safety, and diagnostic capability' (2022, Frontiers in Pharmacology), and 'Stimuli-controllable iron oxide nanoparticle assemblies: Design, manipulation and bio-applications' (2022, Journal of Controlled Release). Ong Yong Sze has received the PeerJ Award for Best Poster (2021), Second Prize Poster Presentation Winner (2021), and Oral Presentation Award (2025). She serves as Editor in Chief for Public Library of Science (PLoS) since 2021 and organizes workshops including Introduction to Flow Cytometry Technology and Applications (2022) and Monash Initiate 2023. As Chief Investigator, she leads projects on spray-dried mesenchymal stem cell-derived small extracellular vesicles for medical applications, development of a 3D metastatic breast cancer-on-chip model, and anti-inflammatory activities of postbiotics.