Editor’s Note
Singapore is on track to achieve its target for R&D expenditure to make up 3% of Singapore’s GDP, with GERD exceeding S$7 billion in 2008. Researchers in Singapore’s institutes also developed a more efficient cardiac-health diagnostics while partnering regional institutes to publish findings on leprosy genes and Asians’ genetic diversity. Singapore also announced recipients of the Clinician Scientist Award, a key initiative to grow Singapore’s pool of clinician-scientists.

 

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• Singapore’s Gross Expenditure on R&D Exceeds S$7billion
• Singapore’s Researchers Developed Cardiac Health Diagnostics with Silicon-Based Integrated System
• Genome Institute of Singapore Partners China Institutes to Discover Leprosy Genes
• Singapore Nurtures Clinician Scientists with Clinician Scientist Awards
• Scientific Consortium Maps Genetic Diversity in Asia
• A*STAR Holds First Singapore-Italy Joint Symposium on Biomedical Sciences 

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Singapore’s Gross Expenditure on R&D Exceeds S$7billion
The Agency for Science, Technology and Research reported in its latest National Survey of R&D, 2008, that Singapore’s gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) recorded a new high of S$7.13 billion in 2008.  This was 2.77% of GDP, putting the country on track to achieving our target of 3% by 2010.  The figures were indicative of the intensity of R&D activities in Singapore.

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Singapore’s Researchers Developed Cardiac Health Diagnostics with Silicon-Based Integrated System
Researchers at A*STAR’s Institute of Microelectronics (IME) have developed a rapid and sensitive integrated system, a label-free technology that uses semiconducting silicon nanowires (SiNWs) as biosensors, to test for specific cardiac biomarkers in blood. Compared to conventional testing platforms, the new integrated system significantly cuts sample preparation and analysis time to just 45 minutes.

The new system has demonstrated promising multiplexing capability, meaning that the new system can measure several cardiac biomarkers simultaneously; thereby contributing to the detail and certainty of diagnosis. It is also less invasive since it uses just a finger prick amount of blood. In the event of a suspected heart attack, these new features could save precious minutes in helping doctors arrive at the right diagnosis for timely medical intervention, which would make a world of difference between life and death. The potential healthcare implications of the promising research outcome has attracted the interest of Singapore National Heart Centre who, in working with IME, proposed the clinical problems and the ‘chokepoints’ for rapid point-of-care (POC) test for diagnosis of heart attacks.

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Genome Institute of Singapore Partners China Institutes to Discover Leprosy Genes
In a first-time-ever genome-wide association study of leprosy, scientists at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) and 26 institutes in China found seven genes that can cause people to become susceptible to leprosy. The discovery of these genes – known as CCDC122, C13orf31, NOD2, TNFSF15, HLA-DR, RIPK2 and LRRK2 – highlights the important role of the innate immune response in the development of leprosy.

Led by Dr Jianjun Liu, Human Genetics Group Leader at the GIS, Dr Fu-Ren Zhang at the Shandong Provincial Institute of Dermatology and Venereology, and Dr Xue-jun Zhang at the Institute of Dermatology and Department of Dermatology at the No.1 Hospital, Anhui Medical University, China, the research involved over 10,000 samples of Chinese leprosy patients and health controls. The study was published on 16 December 2009 in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. The GIS is a biomedical research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore.

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Singapore Nurtures Clinician Scientists with Clinician Scientist Awards
Four clinician scientists have received the Clinician Scientist Awards (CSAs), which provide between three and five years of research funding and salary support. They are specialists from various backgrounds including cancer, obstetrics & gynaecology and ophthalmology (see factsheet). Together with the earlier group of awardees, a total of ten CSAs are given out this year.  

The CSA is part of the overall talent development programme under phase II of the Singapore’s Biomedical Sciences (BMS) Initiative, to build up a pool of these personnel, supernumerary to clinical service needs. There are currently more than 80 clinician scientists working in public hospitals and national disease centres. These clinician scientists spend more than half of their time doing medical and translational research.

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Scientific Consortium Maps Genetic Diversity in Asia
For the first time, over 90 scientists from the Human Genome Organisation’s (HUGO’s) Pan-Asian SNP Consortium have extended genomic studies of human genetic diversity to 73 Southeast Asian (SEA) and East Asian (EA) populations. This human genetic mapping of Asia has important implications, especially in the further understanding of migratory patterns in human history, and for the study of genetics and diseases. The findings were published online in a report in Science on 10 December 2009. Professor Edison Liu, Executive Director at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), and the is one of the corresponding authors and President of the HUGO which initiated and coordinated this research.

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A*STAR Holds First Singapore-Italy Joint Symposium on Biomedical Sciences
Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) organized the 1st Singapore-Italy Joint Symposium on Biomedical Sciences, with support from Regione Lombardia in Italy. The symposium has attracted more than 200 scientists from both countries and the region. Held at Biopolis, distinguished scientists from Italy and Singapore presented groundbreaking findings in cancer, immunology and stem cell therapies during the event. This symposium, aimed at facilitating scientific exchange between scientists from the two countries and encouraging future research collaborations among them, is one of the outcomes of the Memorandum of Intent signed between A*STAR and the Region of Lombardy in Italy in April 2009.

For more info, please click here.

 

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To find out more about Singapore’s Biomedical Sciences scene,
please visit www.biomed-singapore.com