Asst Prof Rena Dharmawan

Dr Rena Dharmawan believes the with the right innovation, one can improve the lives of millions at a time. She is a Consultant Surgeon at Division of Surgery & Surgical Oncology in National Cancer Centre Singapore and Singapore General Hospital. Dr Rena also holds a joint appointment as Assistant professor (Clinical Innovation) and Entrepeneur-in-Residence at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore.

Her clinical interest is in thyroid and parathyroid surgery, thyroid oncology, benign thyroid and parathyroid conditions and completed her Head & Neck Surgery Fellowship, with a focus on thyroid & parathyroid surgery, in Singhealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Center in 2020.

In 2014, she was one of four nationally-selected fellows in the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign (SSB) Programme, a year-long fellowship that aims to train and nurture the next generation of medical technology innovators for Singapore and Asia. After the fellowship, she co-founded a few Singapore-based medtech startups and is currently Programme Director for the Duke-NUS Healthcare Innovation Fellowship to train & develop the next generation of Clinician-Innovators.

Prior to medicine, Rena graduated summa cum laude with a BSc in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She then joined the inaugural batch and completed her medical degree at Duke-NUS Medical School (Singapore) in 2011. She is currently pursuing an MBA in INSEAD Global Executive MBA programme.

• Masters of Medicine (Surgery), National University of Singapore, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
• MD, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore
• BSc (Biomedical Engineering), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• Fellow, Royal College of Surgeons (Edinburgh)
• Member, Royal College of Surgeons (Edinburgh)
• Instructor and Entrepeneur-in-Residence, Center of Technology and Development (CTeD), Duke-NUS Medical School Singapore

• Faculty Appreciation Award, MD, Duke NUS Medical School, Singapore, 2020 & 2018
• NTUC Future Starter 100k Challenge, Winner: Jaga-Me, NTUC Income, Singapore, 2015
• MIT Hacking Medicine @SG, 2nd Runner-Up: JagaMe, IDA, Singapore, 2015
• NTUC Future Starter 100k Challenge, Winner: Privi Medical, NTUC Income, Singapore, 2014

• Medical Device and Technology Innovation
• Thyroid & Parathyroid Disorders

· Dharmawan AR, Henry Ho, Ng HHM, Gopal Iyer, Tan HK, Tan NC
Implementing the Biodesign Process for Medical Device Innovation in Head and Neck Surgery. Surgical Innovation 2020. Vol. 0(0) 1-6, JIF: 1.42, CI: NA

· Yang Y, Kulangara K, Lam RT, Dharmawan R, Leong KW
Effects of topographical and mechanical property alterations induced by oxygen plasma
modification on stem cell behaviour.
ACS Nano. Oct 2012; 6(10):8591-8, JIF: 13.942, CI: NA

· Tan WJ, Chew MH, Dharmawan AR, Singh M, Acharyya S, Loi CT, Tang CL.
Critical appraisal of laparoscopic vs open rectal cancer surgery
World J Gastrointest Surg. June 2016; 8(6): 452-460, JIF: 2.813, CI: NA

· Huang HL, Dharmawan AR, Tan CJ, Thang SP.
A rare case of thymoma first detected on gallium-68 PSMA PET/CT.
Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. Nov 2017. 44(12):2148-2149, JIF: 7.277, CI: NA