SPEECH BY MR LIM HNG KIANG, MINISTER FOR TRADE AND INDUSTRY, AT THE PRESIDENT’S SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AWARDS 2011, ON TUESDAY, 8 NOVEMBER 2011, 7.30 PM AT MARINA BAY SANDS
President Tony Tan Keng Yam
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A very good evening to all of you.
It gives me great pleasure to be here tonight as we gather to honor eight exceptional research scientists and engineers with the nation’s highest scientific awards – the President’s Science and Technology Awards (PSTA).
This year’s PSTA is particularly significant as 2011 marks the celebration of 20 years of Science and Technology planning and development in Singapore. Since the launch of the first National Technology Plan in 1991, the Government has consistently invested in R&D as part of our strategy to transform Singapore into a knowledge-based innovation-driven economy. Given our small population and the lack of any natural resources, this is how we can sustain our competitive edge, move our industries up the value-added curve and create many meaningful jobs for Singaporeans.
Twenty years on, Singapore has established itself as a vibrant, international R&D hub with many research performers and a spectrum of capabilities in both Physical Sciences and Engineering, and Biomedical Sciences. Today, Singapore is home to more than 300 multi-national companies that are engaged in cutting-edge R&D. Our investment in R&D has catalyzed significant private sector expenditure on R&D. In 2010, Singapore’s gross expenditure on R&D of $6.5 billion is more than 2% of our GDP, and over 60% of this is from the private sector. We have also built up a vibrant and diverse community of local and international scientific talents from all over the world. With Singapore establishing itself as the forerunner of innovation, the number of R&D-related jobs has also grown significantly from 8,600 in 1991 to over 40,000 in 2010.
As we move into the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2015 plan this year, we are also witnessing the shift of global demand to Asia and the need for companies to better respond to the unique requirements of the Asian consumers. Singapore is well placed to capitalize on this shift to attract even more corporate R&D investments and activities. We should therefore fully leverage on our broad spectrum of R&D capabilities to catalyze more multi-disciplinary, collaborative research among the research institutes, universities and hospitals, and establish win-win public-private partnerships.
Undergirding this strategy is our scientific talent. Singapore must remain attractive to the most capable and committed scientific talent, local and international. Given our small population base and the inherent value of diversity in research and innovation, we should continue to recruit international talent to complement our core of local scientists to sustain our world-class international research hub. Together, our research community has made significant strides in knowledge creation, scientific discoveries and innovations, and have contributed positively to the Singapore economy and society. While a few individuals are recognized each year for their excellence and impact, the annual PSTA is more an event to celebrate and recognize the achievements of the entire research community for the pursuit of scientific excellence, the discovery of new knowledge or the translation of scientific knowledge into societal or economic impact.
This year’s PSTA winners are all deserving and committed scientists and researchers who have made invaluable contributions to R&D in Singapore. The President’s Science Award winners have demonstrated the highest level of excellence in the discovery and creation of basic scientific knowledge that forms the foundation for potential translation into clinical and industry applications.
The recipient of the 2011 President’s Technology Award bears testimony to how multidisciplinary research can be successfully developed into a clinical application that is not only highly original and innovative, but also extremely useful, garnering interest from pharmaceutical companies internationally.
The winner of the prestigious President’s Science and Technology Medal is affirmation that translational and collaborative research is not only important, but also achievable. His firm conviction for continuous improvements in clinical care culminated in key research collaborations between clinicians and scientists.
Common to all the winners, is their unwavering passion, drive and belief to discover, to create, to innovate, and to translate knowledge into clinical and industry applications for societal and economic benefits. Let me introduce them.
The prestigious President’s Science and Technology Medal 2011 is conferred on Professor Soo Khee Chee, the founding Director of the National Cancer Center of Singapore (NCCS) for his outstanding contributions to the healthcare industry, specifically in bridging translational research and clinical applications with our public healthcare sector.
Under Professor Soo’s strong leadership, NCCS grew from a small department in the Singapore General Hospital to an independent healthcare institution that is recognized internationally. At NCCS, to support the rapid translation of basic research findings into useful clinical applications, Professor Soo spearheaded the strategic centralization and development of state-of-the-art technological platforms. These initiatives led to several breakthroughs in more effective cancer treatment methods for cancer patients.
Professor Soo’s exceptional vision as the Deputy CEO, Research and Education, of Singapore Health Services (or Sing Health), and his unwavering support for research-led improvements in clinical care have catalyzed research collaborations between clinicians and scientists. This is evident in his contributions to the establishment of the Roche Translational Medicine Hub in Singapore, where he engaged industry scientists to collaborate with Singapore clinician-scientists.
Besides being an outstanding surgeon, Professor Soo has also taken a personal interest in mentoring and grooming the next generation of clinician-scientists. As the Vice Dean of Clinical and Faculty Affairs in the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, he was instrumental in creating Singapore’s first graduate-entry medical school. Many of the clinicians and clinician scientists under his tutelage are making their own mark today.
This year’s President’s Science Award is awarded to A*STAR’s Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) Stem Cell Group for putting Singapore on the world map for stem cell research. The team, comprising Dr Lim Bing, Dr Lawrence Stanton, Dr Ng Huck Hui and Dr Paul Robson, is recognized as the first in the world to use cutting-edge genomic technologies to uncover the gene regulatory networks in stem cell biology. In their research, they successfully discovered how stem cells can be controlled and induced to generate on demand a variety of specific cell types within the body. The team also made important discoveries on how differentiated cells like skin cells can be reverted to stem cells. This critical know-how to create stem cells, and to maintain and direct their differentiation will revolutionize the future of regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and drug discovery.
Currently, the team is engaged in collaborative projects with clinicians to engineer different types of tissues for replacement of diseased or degenerated tissues in the eye, heart, brain and joints. Pharmaceutical companies are also seeking to collaborate with the team to explore the use of stem cells to create tools for drug discovery for personalized treatment.
The President’s Science Award is also conferred to the team from NUS for their pioneering research in decentralized database systems management. Professor Ooi Beng Chin and Professor Tan Kian-Lee have broken new ground in ‘big data’ database management. They have successfully challenged the traditional view that efficient information management systems must be centralized. They are the first in the world to demonstrate the practicality and usability of peer-to-peer data management systems for large-scale distributed systems. This means that massive data distributed across several autonomous sources can be quickly retrieved and efficiently processed in parallel and in large-scale decentralized systems, without having to first centralize the data. Their work has also provided the basis of promising data integration and analytics solution for enterprises. Their project has spun off a company called Best Peer, which targets businesses that are geographically distributed.
A potential application is the integration of healthcare data from individual autonomous clinics and hospitals which will allow clinics and hospitals to share data from their existing systems on a centralized network. They will still retain ownership and control of their data through a peer-to-peer arrangement.
The President’s Technology Award winner this year is Professor Lim Chwee Teck from NUS for his groundbreaking research that led to the successful development of a novel micro biochip that detects and diagnoses human diseases. This micro biochip, a world’s first in using cell mechanics principles to detect and retrieve rare live cancer cells from the blood, is a result of Professor Lim’s multidisciplinary research in human disease mechanics.
This highly-original yet simple and non-invasive technology to detect and diagnose diseases such as cancer has received much international attention. Already, this biochip is being clinically tested by clinicians and researchers at various hospitals and top cancer centers in Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. Several pharmaceutical companies have expressed interest in this innovative medical device for cancer detection, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. Professor Lim has also co-founded three companies to accelerate the bench to market and bedside application of this innovative technology developed in his lab.
To all the winners, I extend my warmest congratulations once again for your outstanding achievements and invaluable contributions. You are truly an inspiration for everyone in the research community.
To all the research scientists and engineers present here tonight, your relentless pursuit of scientific excellence is the reason that Singapore is able to establish itself as a key R&D player globally. I am confident that working together as one collaborative community, you will transform Singapore and realize our aspiration to become Asia’s Innovation Capital. Thank you.