Archives   ::   Issue 34, December 2008     

NRF fellows at LSI

LSI is proud to host two recipients of the prestigious Inaugural National Research Foundation Research Fellowships: Dr Cynthia He and Dr Gijsbert Grotenbreg.

The National Research Foundation (NRF) Research Fellowship (RF) Scheme is a globally competitive programme to attract, recruit and root young scientists and researchers to conduct independent research in Singapore. Each Research Fellow is provided with a research grant of up to US$1.5 million over three years, with the option of a second round of three-year funding provided at the discretion of NRF, to support projects that exhibit high likelihood of a research breakthrough.

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Dr Cynthia He is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences’ Structural Biology Group and a member of LSI’s Structural Biology programme. Her research uses an infectious parasite, the African trypanosome, as a model to study the role of centrins, small calcium binding proteins shown to play a role in cell signalling, organelle biogenesis, and cell cycle regulation.

She started her lab in 2007 with a BMRC grant following which she received the prestigious NRF fellowship. The funds helped her purchase a confocal microscope central to her work and hire staff. Her lab currently has 9 members. [READ MORE]

Awards & Honours

Our heartiest congratulations to the following individuals:

Dr Justin Chu from Department of Microbiology, NUS for receiving the Young Investigator Award at the 48th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotheraphy at Washington DC in October 2008.

Dr Lim Kah Leong was awarded Outstanding Mentor Award (2008), Science Mentorship Programmes by the Ministry of Education.

Assoc Prof Peter Wong Tsun-Hon, Head of Department of Phamacology was appointed Associate Editor of Neurochemistry International (Elsevier).

In the Faculty of Science Awards 2008, the Oustanding Scientist Award were given to Prof Ding Jeak Ling, Department of Biological Sciences, Dr Ng Huck Hui, Department of Biological Sciences and Prof Li Baowen from Department of Physics. Dr Yan Jie, Department of Physics, received the Young Scientist Award.

Yow Soh Zeom, a GPBE PhD student and her supervisor, A/Prof Lim Chwee Teck from the Bioengineering Programme was awarded the Young Investigator Award (First Prize) at the International Conference on Biomedical Engineering 2008 and the Best Poster Award at the NUS GPBE-Tohoku University conference 2008.

A/Prof Lim Chwee Teck was also appointed an editorial board member of the Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing journal (Springer) and the Journal of Biorheology (Springer).

Dr. Huang Qing, a Research fellow under the LSI toxicology programme, won the Best Poster Award at the National Healthcare Group Annual Scientific Congress held on November 7-8, 2008 in Singapore. Part of the findings will appear in the journal Cell Death and Differentiation, 2008 (in print).

Season’s Greetings

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The LSI Exco would like to extend their heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all LSI Programmes and their members for the invaluable contributions made and for another successful and productive year. We look forward to your continual support and participation in the various LSI activities. Here’s wishing you and your family a joyous and prosperous 2009!

Safety news

It’s the end of the year and time for Annual Safety and Health Performance Award (ASHPA) and Safety and Health Improvement Project (SHIP) submissions. CeLS will be submitting one ASHPA application and six SHIP applications. LSI would like to thank all those who have contributed their time and effort for the ASHPA submission. Good luck all with your SHIP applications and we wish the New Year rewards our hard work with plenty of prizes.

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Dr Gijsbert Grotenbreg has been in Singapore three months. He is excited about the new espresso machine at work (“it’s the same one I had in the US”), his NGS graduate student and his research assistant, his NRF fellowship and being in Singapore. He lives with his wife in Holland Village and “we’ve already become quite addicted to local cuisine”.

Dr Grotenbreg is an NRF Research Fellow with the LSI Immunology Programme and holds a joint appointment with the Department of Microbiology and the Department of Biological Sciences. He obtained his PhD as an organic chemist and during his post-doc, he used his expertise in chemistry to address questions on how the immune system responds to infections. [READ MORE]