Prof Melvin Leow is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Medicine (Singapore), College of Clinician Scientists (Singapore), American College of Endocrinology, American College of Physicians, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and Royal College of Pathologists. He is an elected council member of the Asia Oceania Thyroid Association (AOTA) and was the past president of the Endocrine and Metabolic Society of Singapore (EMSS). Following his medical and endocrinology training at MOH, NHG Health, Harvard and TTSH, he pursued intensive lab benchwork and research training at A*STAR from 2008 and earned his PhD in biological sciences at NTU.

His field of research includes adipocyte biology, metabolic physiology, thyroid homeostasis, endocrine manifestations of systemic disorders and mathematical modelling. He has published works in over 230 international journals including co-authoring an 18-chapter book on thyroid systems engineering and co-editor of a 12-chapter e-book on thyroid hormones and cardiac arrhythmias. His present H-index is 47 with over 7600 citations, and he has been listed among the world's top 2% of scientists by Stanford University. His co-derived Leow-Goede equations led to a patented algorithm for computing the HPT axis euthyroid set-point. He co-discovered the existence of a novel thyroid-brown fat axis and an exosomal biomarker of brown fat activation. Prof Leow and his collaborators are the world's first to characterise a new, yet unnamed disease of brown fat due to a novel gene mutation disrupting lipid droplet formation that causes obesity.

He is a co-founder of the A*STAR spin-off AdipoSight.AI start-up company. His research focus is on brown adipose tissue, thermogenesis and white adipocytes browning with nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, endogenous peptides/hormones. His achievements include the Clinician Scientist Career Scheme (Senior) Award, the NHG Health Doctor Award for Translational Research, Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence, NHG Health-LKC School of Medicine Clinician Scientist Fellowship Award, NMRC Individual Research Grant Award, NMRC Clinician Scientist Awards (Investigator category – 2015 & 2018; Senior Investigator category – 2023), and Dean's Award for Research – 2024.