GEM4 Summer School on Cell & Molecular Mechanics in Biomedicine 2007

GEM4 will be organizing a GEM4 Summer School on Cell & Molecular Mechanics in Biomedicine (with a focus on Cancer) at the Centre for Life Sciences, from 25 June to 6 July 2007. This is held in conjunction with the GEM4 Conference on Cancer at Suntec City from 1 July to 6 July 2007. Summer Schoolparticipants will get to attend the plenary and keynote lectures for this conference.
This Summer School is open to all graduate students, post-docs, research fellows and faculty members. All NUS participants are entitled to a discount of 30% off the local registration fees. For information on registration, please visit this website: http://www.gem4.org/summerschool2007. The deadline for registration is 31 May 2007.

Proceedings of the Grantsmanship Workshop conducted on 21 March may be viewed by clicking on the URL below: http://nuscast.nus.edu.sg/PublicEvents/1/MODVideoOnly.asp?KEY={73D6E079-C1CA-447F-AA7C-6C66EEB54B9E}# Staff who would like to submit their research proposals to OLS for a voluntary internal review may do so by 11 May 07 to Ellice Lim at olslime@nus.edu.sg.

The BMRC-NMRC joint grant call will be announced very soon. We will forward the information once we have received it. There will be changes to the NMRC grants and peer review process which we will hear about in the road shows being conducted in the first week of May.

The University is actively seeking outstanding PhD graduates and post-doctoral fellows for the prestigious National Research Foundation Fellowship. The NRF Research Fellowship Scheme aims to support talented postdoctoral fellows 35 years old and below and is open to all nationalities. Its main objective is to attract and retain the best young research talents to Singapore. Each appointed fellow will be provided with a research grant of up to US$1.5 million over three years. Outstanding Fellows may be offered tenured track or permanent positions at the appropriate academic departments in NUS. This process is being coordinated by the Office of Research : http://www.nus.edu.sg/ore/fellowships/fellowship_nrf/about.htm. We encourage all eligible young scientists to apply. OLS will circulate short-listed candidates to all programme leaders for consideration.

OLS Young Investigator Seminar Series Cum Networking Session

The OLS Young Investigator Seminar was held on 13 May 2007. The speakers were Dr Han Ming Yong (Division of Bioengineering) and Dr Paul A MacAry (Department of Microbiology) who were winners of the NUS Young Investigator Award in 2002 and 2004, respectively. The seminar was followed by a Networking Session where participants interacted with the speakers.

OLS Distinguished Lecture Series

The OLS Distinguished Lecture was delivered by Professor Huang Yu from the Chinese University of Hong Kong on Thursday 26 April 2007 at the CeLS Auditorium. He spoke on “Endothelial Cell Function in Health and Disease”.

OLS hosted several visits:

• Delegation from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, India on 12 April 2007

• Delegation from Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel on 26 April 2007

The purpose of the above two visits was to obtain first-hand information about the research at NUS and to look for opportunities for research collaboration.

• Visit from the Saudi Arabia Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and his delegates on the 27 April 2007

OLS is committed to workplace safety, in particular laboratory safety. The Office works closely with the laboratory staff and OSHE to promote and encourage a “culture of safe practices” within the laboratories. One primary task of OLS is to ensure that the safety message reaches all staff through continual training and education. In keeping with this aim, we encourage all the staff to attend the safety courses conducted by OSHE (biological, chemical, radiation and fire safety).

NMRC Grant Call Roadshows

The National Medical Research Council (NMRC) will be giving a series of roadshows in May 2007. Dr Edwin Low (Executive Director, NMRC) will speak at the following roadshows which will be followed by a Q & A session.
Clinicians and researchers who intend to submit applications for the combined BMRC/NMRC grant call are invited to the roadshows by NMRC. They will be announcing changes to the grant application.

Topics that will be covered include:
• Changes to grant framework
• Modifications to grant application
• Peer review process
• Competitive Research Fund (NRF)

The schedule of the roadshows held in NUS and external venues is as follows:
2 May 2007 (Wed), 8.00am – 9.00am
TTSH Theatrette,Tan Tock Seng Hospital

2 May 2007 (Wed), 8.00am – 9.00am MD 11,
National University of Singapore

3 May 2007 (Thu), 11.00am -12.00pm, 5.30 pm – 6.30pm
SingHealth Research Facilities Auditorium
Block A, #02-01, 7 Hospital Drive
Singapore 169611

4 May 2007 (Fri), 9.30am -10.30am
Centre for Life Sciences (CeLS) Auditorium, NUS

4 May 2007 (Fri), 12.00pm – 1.00pm
CRC Auditorium, NUS

9 May 2007 (Wed), 4.00pm – 5.00pm
LT2 (opposite Administration Building), NTU

OLS Young Investigator Seminar Series Cum Networking Session

The OLS Young Investigator Seminar will be held on Friday, 4 May 2007 from 4pm to 5pm at the CeLS Auditorium. It will comprise two half-hour presentations. The two speakers are Dr Ng Huck Hui (NUS Young Investigator Award Winner 2002) from Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science and Dr Ricardo Rodolfo Lareu, from NUSSTEP, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. The seminar will be followed by a Networking Session. We warmly welcome all colleagues to join us for this session.

Immunology Seminar Series

Tues, 15 May 2007
“Molecular Basis of T Cell Costimulation”   

By Dr Song Jianxun
Time: 12-1pm Venue: CeLS Auditorium

OLS now has a full complement of senior management staff:

Dr Viji Vijayan, Scientific Manager who joined OLS in March, is responsible for scientific matters such as institutional policies, coordination of scientific programmes in OLS, communication with both local and international funding agencies such as BMRC and NMRC, safety matters and facility operations of CeLS.

Finance section in OLS is headed by the Finance Manager Ms Chang Shik Pen. She is responsible for the financial administration of life science projects, budget matters and human resource in OLS.

Senior Manager Mrs Ellice Lim heads the outreach section and co-ordinates the OLS Distinguished Lecture series, the OLS Young Investigator Seminar series, ad-hoc workshops, seminars and conferences, visits, corporate collaterals and media publicity.

OLS also warmly welcomes Siti Haryanti who officially joined OLS as Management Support Officer on 10 April 07. Siti will support Mrs Ellice Lim.

We would like to extend our heartiest congratulations to the following faculty members for receiving prestigious awards at the recent University Awards 2007 held on 19 April 2007:

A/Prof Liu Xiang Yang (Structural Biology & Proteomics Programme)
Outstanding Researcher Award

A/Prof Alirio J. Melendez (Immunology Programme)
Outstanding Young Scientist Award

Prof Chan Soh Ha (Dept of Microbiology)
Emeritus Professorship

Dr Yu Hao (Structural Biology & Proteomics Programme)
Outstanding Young Scientist Award