Meet Julia, who successfully made the unconventional swop to cybersecurity after working several years in medical lab technology. An assistant manager from Policy, Risk and Capability Development under Synapxe’s Cyber Defence Group, Julia pivoted to cybersecurity after becoming concerned by the vulnerabilities posed by connected medical devices while in her previous job. Since then, she has become a key member of the team behind a global initiative to make medical devices safer for healthcare professionals and consumers.
A bold leap from medical lab diagnostics to cybersecurity
Prior to joining the cybersecurity sector, Julia spent 6 years as a Medical Lab Technologist at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH). Day-to-day, she performed biomedical tasks, such as histological preparations of patient specimens for pathological diagnosis.
With aspirations to make public healthcare safer and more secure, Julia began a transformative journey by pursuing a Specialist Diploma in Bioinformatics and Data Analytics to gain a deeper understanding of bioinformatics and data security. She then took on an apprenticeship and developed federated medical image segmentation pipelines with artificial intelligence (AI).
Driven by the strategic challenge of shaping the future of healthcare, Julia joined Synapxe to build her career in the policy realm of cybersecurity in HealthTech. Her unwavering dedication also earned her a cybersecurity certification from the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2).
Advancing healthcare cybersecurity in Singapore and beyond
Today, Julia leverages her expertise across the different fields to establish cybersecurity standards for medical devices worldwide. As these devices become increasingly connected to hospital and home networks, the potential for cyber risks rises, highlighting the need for proactive measures to enhance the cybersecurity safeguards.
Serving as a key member of the team behind the cross-agency collaboration that developed the “first-in-the-world” multi-levelled Cybersecurity Labelling Scheme for Medical Devices [CLS(MD)] in Singapore, she has played a vital role in enabling consumers and healthcare providers to make informed decisions regarding the security of these devices before purchase and use.
Her aspiration in creating a safer healthcare ecosystem for all also extends beyond Singapore borders. Adapting from the security assurance levels outlined in the CLS(MD), her team also worked with the Global Digital Health Partnership (GDHP) to launch the GDHP Guidance for Medical Device Cybersecurity (GMDC) in a significant move to bolster cybersecurity in healthcare globally.
For Julia, being in a position at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and cybersecurity provides her with a distinctive perspective that is invaluable in today's HealthTech landscape.
Her background in biomedical science, AI and Machine Learning (ML) allows her to harmonise knowledge from these diverse fields to contribute significantly to patient care, albeit indirectly, through ensuring the cybersecurity of medical devices.
