Archives   ::   Issue 35, January 2009     

NRF Proof of Concept Awards

LSI is proud to announce that two of its members, Assistant Professor Theodoros Kofidis and Assistant Professor Dieter Trau, have received the National Research Foundation’s inaugural Proof of Concept Award. The grant provides up to $250,000 to fund Proof of Concept studies, which are needed to show that a technology works and has potential for commercialisation.

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In this issue we would like to feature the work undertaken by Dr Kofidis who is a member of LSI’s Cardiovascular Biology Programme and a Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at the Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery, headed by Professor Lee Chuen Neng.

The technology that won him the award involves replacing a damaged mitral valve by an artificial one, using a new implantation technology. [READ MORE]

Safety News

New fully stocked spill carts will be stationed at each Programme at CeLS in February. There will be a total of eight spill carts across the CeLS building that can be accessed easily from each floor. Based on the recommendations from the CeLS crisis management team, LSI will sponsor two volunteers from each programme for an emergency management training course, which will cover spill training, isolation, decontamination and other emergency procedures. Please contact Kannan at lsikr@nus.edu.sg to sign up for the course.

2nd International Singapore Symposium of Immunology

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The 2nd International Singapore Symposium of Immunology was held on 19-20th of January 2009 at the NUS University Cultural Centre. It attracted 350 international participants and 21 speakers from North America, Europe, Australia, Japan and Singapore. [READ MORE]

NRF Competitive Research Programme Award

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Prof Peter Wong, Neurobiology and Ageing programme, was awarded a $10 million grant over three to five years under the NRF Competitive Research Programme (CRP) Funding Scheme for his proposal on Ischemic Stroke with a Focus on Intracranial Stenosis.

His proposal was one of four research proposals to be awarded grants under NRF’s inaugural scenario-based grant call on Ageing. The grant call received 48 preliminary proposals (or white papers) submitted by Singapore-based researchers from local universities, polytechnics, public research entities as well as private companies. Fourteen white papers were shortlisted and developed into full proposals. These were internationally peer-reviewed. The International Evaluation Panel (IEP) for the Competitive Research Programme (CRP) recommended four proposals for this grant call. [READ MORE]

Biophysical Sciences Programme

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LSI is pleased to announce that the Structural Biology and Proteomics Research (SBPR) programme has changed its name to the Biophysical Sciences Programme (BPSP). The new Programme Leader is Prof Paul Matsudaira, the newly appointed Head of the Dept of Biological Sciences.

Prior to his headship, Prof Matsudaira was Distinguished Visiting Professor with the Dept of Biological Sciences. [READ MORE]

Promotion

Our congratulations to Dr Jayaraman Sivaraman, Dept of Biological Sciences and member of the Biophysical Sciences Programme for his promotion to Associate Professorship.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

The LSI Exco would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy and Prosperous Lunar New Year. May the year of the Ox bring you good health, happiness, wealth, peace and joy!