Ling Tau Chuan is Professor of Biotechnology in the Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya. He has published over 140 research papers in a wide range of scientifi c journals, as well as reviews and patents in the fi elds of Downstream Processing and Bioprocess Engineering. He has received major grants from the university, the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) of Malaysia, and the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (MOHE). His work has also been funded directly by the industry. Currently, he serves as the Co-Editor in Chief for Current Biochemical Engineering

Sanitary landfi ll is the most common solid waste management globally. Th e key success of a sanitary landfi ll depends on its leachate management. In biological treatment technology, anaerobic and aerobic processes are promising methods to treat the biodegradable matters especially biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and ammoniacal nitrogen. While this conventional method is still practiced currently, emerging new, non-conventional methods have also been developed. Th erefore, instead of heterotrophic denitrifi cation procedure, autotrophic denitrifi cation was found as a substitute method to treat wastes with little carbon content and high nitrogen content. In this paper, it is shown that targeting the respective parameters for the removal of the leachate is the key selection of biological processes. Aerobic methane oxidation coupled to denitrifi cation (AME-D) and partial nitritation–anammox processes are among the widely studied technologies for the biological treatment processes. Studies on the microbial activity and metabolism related to the biological treatment technology should be a future fi eld of study for the researchers to optimize the leachate treatment process. With the integration of biological process in the leachate treatment, the effl uent discharge could be treated in a shorter time and it may represent potential novel pathway for the organic content and

nitrogen removal.

Current clinical research in oncology has transitioned from a focus on generally cytotoxic chemotherapies to targeted, small molecule therapeutics. However, the broad array of gene repair and immune defense mechanisms in the body’s arsenal against cancer indicate that cancer is not simply the result of a single renegade cell randomly mutating out of control. Th e fact that genomewide epigenetic changes precede cancer, suggests that tumor etiology and progression involve multiple dynamical systems. One of the biological systems that have received the least attention in cancer research is that of the endogenous bioelectric signals stemming from ion channels in cell and mitochondrial membranes. Th ese voltage potentials have been shown to play an important

role in regulating cell diff erentiation, proliferation, migration, orientation, apoptosis and gene expression. In fact, one of the fi rst steps in the epithelial-mesenchymal transition in tumor formation is cellular depolarization. Not only does hyperpolarization of oncogenes prevent tumor development, it has been demonstrated that bioelectric signals interact with biochemical signaling, and that depolarized Vmem is an epigenetic initiator of metastatic behavior even in the absence of a centralized tumor. Th e theme of this talk is that for cancer to occur, multiple systems must be dysfunctional and that biophysical signaling fi lls an important knowledge gap in current thinking in tumor biology.