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Background

Dr. Susan Lim is the current Co-chair of the Global Advisory Council of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), which, with a membership of over 4000 across 60 countries, is the largest global body of stem cell scientists.

Susan’s historic performance of the first successful cadaveric liver transplant for Singapore in 1990 propelled her into the media spotlight at the age of 35.  She broke through the gender glass ceiling in transplantation surgery and became the first in Asia, and the second woman in the world to have performed a successful liver transplant at that time.
Following an early education in Singapore, Susan was awarded scholarships to study medicine (Colombo Plan Scholarship) at Monash University, Australia, and a PhD in transplantation immunology at the University of Cambridge. She was awarded the GB Ong Gold medal (shared) for topping the surgical exams at the Royal College of Surgeons (Edinburgh) in 1984.

Susan’s entrepreneurial work in surgery earned her the Business Times of Singapore “Spirit of the Century” Award, conferred upon her by the Singapore public in a national contest to identify a role model for the 21st century.

Her academic recognitions include being the youngest academic to be elected Fellow of Trinity College (2005),University of Melbourne, Australia, the Monash University Distinguished Alumnus Award (2006),  and  an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Medicine (Honoris Causa) by The University of Newcastle, Australia (2007).

In  2007, the Committee for Review & Recognition (CRR) named the American Academy of Continuing Medical Education (AACME) 28th award, the “Dr Susan Lim Award” for the advancement in Laparoscopic & Minimally Invasive Surgery.
Susan pioneered the Da Vinci Robotic General Surgery Program in Singapore in 2004, held the position of Robotic Medical Director for Asia for Computer Motion Industries in 2003, and was appointed Chairman of Parkway Hospitals Centre for Robotic Surgery for Training and Development in 2005.

Over her 30 year academic and surgical career, Susan has focused on pioneering new areas in medicine, which have included transplantation and stem cell research, which she describes in her 2011 TED talk “Transplant Cells not Organs” and robotic surgery, which is the topic of her 2016 TED Berkeley Talk “The Dawn of a New Ecosystem in Organ Replacement”.
For her humanitarian work, Susan was recognized in the Australian House of Parliament (House of Representatives Official Hansard no. 17, 2005) for attending to, and saving the lives of Australian victims of the second Bali bomb blast.

Dr. Susan Lim and her husband founded the Indiapore Trust in 2000 to educate underprivileged children in Asia with a focus in the area of information technology. In 2010, a scholarship was established in her name to assist well-deserving students pursue a medical education at Trinity College, University of Melbourne, Australia.  Through the her Endowment for Education and Research, this has been extended to include medical and research scholarships at the University of Newcastle,  and the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) respectively.  In 2011, she was included in a list of 100 remarkable women compiled into a book (page 13) commemorating the University of Newcastle’s 100 women project.
Susan’s wide–ranging interests include skiing, swimming and a huge love for the outdoors. Her desire to discover that next big thing has kept her actively focused on robotics and stem cell research.

In addition to her current four-year term as co-chair of the Global Advisory Council of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), Susan is visiting scholar to the University of California Berkeley and has lectured on “Robotic Surgery – Engineering from a surgeon’s perspective”.

She is co-founder of 91 Springboard, a start up growth hub headquartered in Delhi.
Susan strongly believes that as society increasingly embraces technology, communication and interactions will extend beyond humans to robots and other in animates. Dr Susan Lim Susan Lim Mey Lee Dr Susan Lim Surgeon Doctor