Dr Claramae Chia is the Head and Senior Consultant in the Department of Sarcoma, Peritoneal and Rare Tumours (SPRinT), Division of Surgery and Surgical Oncology, National Cancer Centre Singapore. She graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2005. She obtained her membership diploma for surgery in 2008 from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. In May 2013, she completed her advanced surgical training and joined as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. She continued on to her subspecialty training in surgical oncology with a focus on peritoneal surface malignancies. In 2013, she was awarded the SingHealth Health Manpower Development Plan - Peritoneal Surface Malignancy Surgical Oncology Programme. She trained at the Centre Hospitalier Lyon Sud in Lyon, France with Professor Olivier Glehen. Under her leadership, the SPRinT department was formed in 2019 in recognition of the advanced oncological work that the team had been performing. Dr Chia and the SPRinT department continue to push clinical boundaries by introducing new services and initiatives. Examples of this include the introduction of Pressurised Intraperitoneal Aerolised Chemotherapy(PIPAC) and a focus of palliative surgical care.

On the research front, she has been actively involved in clinical as well as basic science research since her basic surgical training. She has had publications in several peer reviewed journals. In 2008, she joined the Wee Kim Wee Laboratory of Surgical Oncology at the National Cancer Centre as a clinical research fellow and won the Singapore Millennium Foundation Grant for Associate Investigator for her translational work in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. In Sprint, Dr Chia continues to remain actively involved in research with the focus on peritoneal surface malignancies, retroperitoneal sarcoma and advanced / pelvic malignancies. She has published more than 70 manuscripts over the course of her research. The department also runs several clinical trials in peritoneal surface malignancies. Dr Chia is also a strong advocate of teaching the next generation of surgeons and doctors. She contributes to the General Surgical Residency Program and is actively involved in teaching medical students from all 3 local medical schools. She is also the first and only mentor in an Asian institute under the European School of Peritoneal Surface Oncology (ESPSO).