Dr Tan Ai Ling is Senior Consultant and Head of the Diagnostic Bacteriology section of the Department of Pathology. She graduated from the National University of Singapore in 1981, and subsequently trained in Microbiology. She obtained the Diploma in Bacteriology (University of Manchester) in 1986 and the Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia in 1989. She was awarded a HMDP Fellowship in Mycology and Laboratory Quality Assurance from October 1993 to January 1994. Her interests are in Mycology and general Bacteriology. She is the chairman of the department’s Laboratory Quality Committee which oversees quality, accreditation and safety issues.