Ima Nirwana Soelaiman ESA-SRB-AOTA 2019

Ima Nirwana Soelaiman

Prof. Dr. Ima Nirwana Soelaiman is a Professor of Pharmacology from the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Prof Ima graduated with MBBS from University Malaya in 1985. After serving in the Ministry of Health for 3 years, she joined UKM as a trainee lecturer in 1988 and graduated with a PhD in Pharmacology in 1994. She was appointed lecturer in the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, UKM. Prof. Ima was elevated to the position of Associate Professor in 1998, and Professor in 2003. Her research interest is in the area of Natural Products, Bone Metabolism and Osteoporosis. Her research team has developed many animal models of osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, and metabolic syndrome. Amongst the natural products studied are tocotrienols from palm and annatto oils, Piper sarmentosum and Labisia pumila. Her research includes in vivo efficacy and safety studies, in vitro mechanistic studies as well as clinical epidemiology studies on bone health. Prof. Ima has published 173 articles in ISI Wos/Scopus indexed journals and has a H-index of 27 (Scopus) and 33 (Google Scholar); and cumulative citation of 2,426 (Scopus) and 3,481 (Google Scholar). She has won 13 medals locally and internationally in research, including Gold Medals in the 34th International Exhibition of Inventions, New Techniques and Products, Geneva, Switzerland, 2006; Invention and New Product Exposition (INPEX2008), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 2008; and The Belgian and International Trade Fair for Technological Innovation, Brussels, 2013. She was also UKM’s Researcher of the Year in 2006, 2008, 2015 and UKM Scholar of the Year for 2017. Prof. Ima was featured by Elsevier as one of “10 Women in Science for International Women’s Day 2015” in the journal “Life Science”. Prof. Ima is the Lead Inventor for the patent “Composition of Palm Vitamin E as a bone strengthening agent to prevent fractures and promote fracture healing”, MY-146895-A. She has also filed another patent as Lead Inventor, “Human Osteoporotic Bone Model for Pre-clinical Testing of Bioactive Compounds”, PI2018701031. Prof. Ima is the Co-Inventor for several other Intellectual Property filings, such as “TocoHealth: A Natural Supplement that Prevents Metabolic Syndrome”, PI 2018703946 and “Process of isolation of bioactive compound from DCM fraction of Labisia pumila alata leaves”, PI 2016702799 Prof. Ima was the Deputy Dean (Research and Innovation) and Chair, Research Committee, Faculty of Medicine UKM from 2012-2017. She was formerly the Head of Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine UKM, and Founding Head of the Bone Metabolism Research Group UKM. She has served in Research Evaluation Panels for UKM and the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health and Ministry. She has also been a member of the UKM Human Research Ethics Committee from 2007 to 2017. For now, Prof. Ima is doing what she enjoys most, i.e. mentoring and nurturing young researchers in research and publications. She is also keen to educate the young researchers on the ethical conduct in human research as well as ethical publishing practices. Prof. Ima other interests are history and the study of historical artifacts. She is presently in the midst of writing the History of The Setting Up of the UKM Medical Faculty and Teaching Hospital in collaboration with the Founding Medical Dean and Founding Hospital Director. Prof. Ima has also started on an exciting new project to study the microarchitecture of prehistoric bones found in Malaysia in collaboration with researchers from ATMA UKM.