Dr. Kumutha Priya

Senior Associate
Registered New Plant Variety and Grant of Breeder’s Right Agent

Kumutha was born and raised in the historical tin mining city of Ipoh, Perak. She completed her studies with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Science (Hons) from University Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) and then pursued her Ph.D in Genetics & Molecular Biology at University of Malaya, the oldest and most prestigious university in Malaysia.

While pursuing her Ph.D, she worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at one of Asia’s leading research facility, High Impact Research (HIR) that is located in University of Malaya. Working HIR has exposed to her numerous high-end and cutting edge research technologies and instruments. Her research focuses on bacterial quorum sensing (QS) and quorum quenching (QQ). Her projects involved studying the potential of Malaysian endemic plants and plant-based synthetic compounds against bacterial QS. Her work further expands into studying quorum sensing bacteria using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) for whole genome sequencing and investigating bacterial physiology at a gene expression level by transcriptomics approach using RNA-sequencing technology. Although having being in the research field for a few years, she developed a keen interest in law and decided to venture into intellectual properties.

She has successfully published her research findings in several Tier1 journals listed in the ISI Web of Science/Scopus as well as presenting in conferences and seminars. She also has several papers that are currently being peer-reviewed.

List of publications includes:

1. Chan K, Priya K, Chang C, Abdul Rahman, AY, Tee KK, Yin W. (2016). Transcriptome analysis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 grown at both body and elevated temperatures. PeerJ 4: e2223. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2223
2. Chan KG, Joanita S, Delicia AY, Tee KK, Yin WF, Priya K. (2015). Draft Genome Perspective of Staphylococcus saprophyticus Strain SU8, an N¬-Acyl Homoserine Lactone-Degrading Bacterium. Genome Announcement. doi: 10.1128/genomeA.01097-15
3. Chan KG, Yin WF, Tee KK, Chang CY, Priya K. (2015). Pandoraea sp. Strain E26: Discovery of Its Quorum-Sensing Properties via Whole-Genome Sequence Analysis. Genome Announcement. doi: 10.1128/genomeA.00565-15
4. Priya K, Yin WF, Chan KG. (2013). Anti-Quorum Sensing Activity of the Traditional Chinese Herb, Phyllanthus amarus. Sensors. 13, 14558-14569.

A nature lover with crave for adventure; she loves out-door activities such as hiking and jungle trekking. She enjoys reading and solving brain teasers. Being an ambitious and goal-oriented person, she believes that one could achieve his/her goals if it is done with passion.

She speaks fluent English, Malay, Tamil and basic Mandarin.