(From left) Penang Free School Foundation president Ivan Ooi Jieun Vei sharing a light moment with Penang-born Professor Tan Seang Lin and his wife Dr Grace Tan at Penang Free School Archives Room. ( January 10, 2025 ) ?aCHAN BOON KAI/The Star
A PENANG-born luminary in fertility medicine who was honoured with a professorship at University College of London (UCL) is aiming to bring his expertise home.
Professor Tan Seang Lin, 70, has plans to establish a state-of-the-art fertility clinic in his hometown, offering advanced treatments at minimal costs to Malaysians.
“Imagine a woman in Penang accessing the same sophisticated fertility care as someone in London. That’s the future I want to be building,” he said in an interview.
Stressing that "fertility care shouldn't be a luxury", Prof Tan said his formative years as a Penangite gave him his roots and inspired him to start such a clinic in Penang to give back to society.
He is the first Malaysian, Penangite and Penang Free School boy to receive a professorship at UCL.
Titled the "Professor Tan Seang Lin, Dr Grace Tan and Origin Elle Fertility Distinguished Chair in Women's Health", this is now a permanent position at UCL.
Dr Grace, 65, is Prof Tan's wife and holds a PhD in health management from Oxford University. The position is backed by an indefinite £240,000 (RM1.5m) annual endowment for research into women’s health.
Prof Tan said after Penang Free School, he was awarded a Commonwealth scholarship to read law at University of Cambridge but his circumstances changed due to the May 13 riots, and that was when his father advised him to change to medicine instead.
"I applied to Universiti Malaya but was rejected and when Singapore University took me in, that was where my journey began," he said.
Prof Tan trained in Singapore and the United Kingdom under Nobel Laureate for medicine Robert Edwards, also dubbed the “father of in vitro fertilisation" (IVF).
Prof Tan went on to co-found the London Women's Clinic with specialists Professor Howard Jacobs, Stuart Campbell and Edwards. The centre pioneered techniques that simplified IVF, slashing costs and expanding access to the procedure.
His breakthrough included performing the world’s first live birth from a thawed, lab-matured egg in 2005.
Prof Tan plans to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into his global research and practice in Penang.
“AI could unravel fertility’s biggest puzzles and bringing these methods to Malaysia will transform lives,” he said.
He hopes to replicate in Penang his successes in London and Montreal, where he is also a professor at McGill University.
Despite his age, Prof Tan said he still worked 70 to 80 hours, six days a week.
"I am someone who is unable to sit still. I still see patients on weekdays while on Saturdays, I go through my research".
"Working keeps me alert, and on Sundays, which is my only day off, I would walk to a cinema near my clinic to watch a movie to relax my mind.
He added that he came back to Penang to see his friends two to three times a year.
"My eventual plan is to have my 35-year-old son, Dr Justin Tan, also an IVF specialist, take over my practice but at the moment, he is still working in Toronto," he said.
