About

MBBS (S’pore), MRCP (UK), FAMS (Medical Oncology). Dr. Toh is a medical oncologist who sub-specializes in thoracic oncology, genitourinary oncology, and head and neck cancer. As a discoverer of lung cancer patterns among Asian never-smokers, his early observations established the role of targeted therapy in lung cancer.

Qualifications

Dr. Toh graduated from National University of Singapore in 1995. He cleared MRCP (UK) in 2000, followed by specialist accreditation in Medical Oncology in 2004. Under the Health Manpower Development Programme, he received further subspecialist training the Burnham Institute in La Jolla and Moores Cancer Centre in San Diego.

Awards and publications

Dr. Toh graduated from National University of Singapore with the Gibb’s Gold medal in 1995. Dr. Toh has publications in high impact journals, including Lancet, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, Nature Communications, BMC Cancer and Cancer Discovery One of his many achievements includes being the first to publish on the clinical characteristics of lung cancer among the never-smokers, at a time when the molecular characteristics of this target group had yet to be made known. It was later discovered that lung cancer in never-smokers forms a large percentage of the Asian population.

Membership

For majority of his career, Dr. Toh worked at the National Cancer Centre Singapore, with a 3-year stint intercalated at Raffles Cancer Centre as the director of clinical research. He now practices at Curie Oncology. He led the Lung Cancer Consortium project at National Cancer Centre Singapore, where he coordinated lung cancer research to pave the way for many publications and discoveries. Dr. Toh was one of few oncologists in Singapore to administer high dose interleukin-2 as a form of immunotherapy treatment for kidney cancer and melanoma. Immunotherapy then transitioned to checkpoint inhibitors over the years, and became a cornerstone in the treatment of many cancers today. He was part of the team which received a large collaborative grant on ‘Next-Generation Clinical Trials and Integrative Research for Fighting Lung Cancer’ from the National Medical Research Council. He was also involved in overseeing the Singapore Cancer Network (SCAN) guidelines for lung cancer, kidney cancer, prostate cancer and bladder cancer. In the area of teaching, Dr. Toh was an assistant professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS and Duke-NUS medical school.