Isma Liza Mohd Isa is an HRB Principal Investigator in CÚRAM and an Honorary Research Senior Lecturer in the School of Medicine. She is also a senior lecturer in Anatomy at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).She graduated Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences (Honours) from UKMin 2006. She was conferred a PhD (Anatomy) from the National University of Ireland (NUI), Galway, in 2017. She did her post-doctorate in spine research at CÚRAM, NUI Galway (2017-2020), and the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, UKM (2021). Her research focuses on degenerative disc disease, specifically modulating inflammatory pain and tissue regeneration using biomaterials and stem cells.Through a precision medicine approach, her research progresses towards the development of disc-on-a-chip for the modelling of patient-specific pathogenesis of intervertebral disc degeneration underlying inflammation and nociception.She has received multiple prestigious awards, including the Emerging Investigator Award for Health from the Health Research Board, Ireland, the Outstanding Anatomist Award (Research) by the Malaysian Anatomical Association, the Julia Polak European Doctorate Award from the European Society for Biomaterials and the First Prize Young Researcher Award from AO Spine.

Intervertebral disc, Pain, Biomaterials, Stem Cells, Organ-on-a-chip

Anatomy macroscopic (musculoskeletal - Spine and Upper limb)Anatomy microscopic (histology for all body systems)