Seminar by Neurobiology Programme

“Imaging genetics in schizophrenia”

Dr Tan Hao Yang
Department of Psychological Medicine, NUS

Date: Wednesday, 12 March 2008
Time: 12.00pm – 1.00pm
Venue: Seminar Room 1, Level 1, CeLS

TBA

Prof Ranga Krishnan
Executive Vice Dean
Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore

Date: Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Time: 12:30pm – 1.30pm
Venue: MD9 seminar room, Department of biochemistry
 
 
  
 
 
   
 

Editorial Team

Lim Chwee Teck
Ellice Lim
Siti Haryanti
Aziz Salim

Seminar by Cancer Programme

“Application of Expression Microarray for Cancer Phenotype Analysis and Drug Discovery”

Dr Seiichi Mori
Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy (IGSP)
Duke University, USA

Date: Tuesday, 11 March 2008
Time: 10.30am – 11.30am
Venue: CeLS Auditorium, Level 1

Seminars by Immunology Programme

“Unsolved problems to fight respiratory pathogens; Tuberculosis and pertussis, a common approach for two different diseases?”

Professor Camille Locht
Institut Pasteur de Lille Inserm U629
Lille, France

Date: Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Time: 12.00pm – 1.00pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium, Level 1

“Probing dendritic cell function by inducible cell ablation and conditional gene targeting”

Dr Bjoern Clausen
Dept of Cell Biology and Histology
Academic Medical Center
University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Date: Tuesday, 11 March 2008
Time: 12.00pm – 1.00pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium, Level 1

“The role of angiopoietin-like protein 4 in epithelial wound repair”

Dr Andrew Tan Nguan Soon
School of Biological Sciences
Nanyang Technological University

Date: Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Time: 12.00pm – 1.00pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium, Level 1

“Investigating pathogen-host interactions in paramyxovirus infected cells”

A/Prof Richard J Sugrue
School of Biological Sciences
Nanyang Technological University

Date: Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Time: 12.00pm – 1.00pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium, Level 1

Assoc Prof Herbert Schwarz, OLS Immunology
Programme, giving a lecture on the biological
response to the cytokine receptor CD137.

A joint OLS Immunology and Structural Biology and Proteomics Inter-Programmatic Research Meeting was held on 25 February 2008 at the Department of Biological Sciences Conference Room. The objective of the meeting was to enable investigators from both programmes to explore “outside of their box” and seek synergism between the expertise within both programmes. The latest as well as key techniques available and scientific problems in both programmes were highlighted and this led to good discussion that allowed for much cross fertilization of expertise and ideas. [READ MORE]

OLS, BMRC and NMRC will jointly organize a Grantsmanship workshop on Wednesday, 12 March 2008 at the Centre for Life Sciences Auditorium. The objective of the workshop is to familiarize young scientists and PIs with the knowledge of writing good research proposals for grant calls.

Admission is free. For more details and registration, please refer to the URL:

http://www.ols.nus.edu.sg/grants_workshop/register.html

OLS Distinguished Lecture Series

“How T cells “see” Antigen”

Professor Arup K. Chakraborty
Robert T. Haslam Professor of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Biological Engineering
MIT

Date:   Monday, 17 March 2008
Time:   4.00pm – 5.00pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium, Level 1

The next NRF Research Fellowship call will be made in May 2008. We would like to encourage OLS Programmes to be proactive and to recommend suitable life science candidates for OLS’ consideration. Applicants must be 35 years old and below with strong track record in research. Applicants should send their detailed resume and publication listing to Ellice Lim by end April 2008. More information on the criteria for the application is obtainable from the publicity poster available at the link: http://ols.nus.edu.sg/wp-pages/calendar/posters/nrf_2008.pdf

The National Research Foundation (NRF) recently announced the first group of 10 researchers to be named NRF Research Fellows.

To build up a pool of brilliant and passionate researchers in various fields to add to Singapore’s research talent pool the NRF Research Fellowship was instituted to attract the young talents. The Fellowship will provide each promising young Research Fellow substantial funding to carry out cutting-edge research in Singapore. Over a period of three years, each Research Fellow could receive up to US$1.5 million in research funding support, with the possibility of receiving a second round of three-year funding. The second round of funding will be awarded to projects that exhibit a high likelihood of a significant research breakthrough. [READ MORE]

His primary appointment is Research Associate Professor with the NUS Department of Orthopaedic Surgery (1998) and has been appointed Director of Research for the department since 1999.

He also holds a secondary appointment as Associate Professor at the NUS Division of Bioengineering, Faculty of Engineering, a position which he held since 2002 and was also appointed as Deputy Head (Admin & Comm) since 2005. He is also currently the Chair, of the Management Committee, NGS Graduate Programme in Bioengineering. [READ MORE]

A group of 18 delegates from the Animal Ethics Committee (AEC), University Science Malaysia (USM) Health Campus, visited the Laboratory Animal Centre (LAC) at CeLS on 26 February 2008. The objective of the visit was to share and exchange knowledge and experience between the two institutions and committees.

OLS Young Investigator Seminar Series cum Networking Session

The OLS Young Investigator Seminar was held at the CeLS Auditorium on 28 February 2008. The two speakers were Dr Yan Jie from the Department of Physics and Dr Martin L. Buist from the Division of Bioengineering, NUS. The seminar was followed by a Networking Session.

Dr Yan delivered a lecture titled “Studies of DNA Compaction and DNA Micromechanics using Single-Molecule Biophysical Methods” while Dr Buist’s lecture was on “Multiscale Models of the Gastrointestinal Tract”.

OLS Lunar New Year Party

The OLS Exco hosted some 480 staff and students to a Lunar New Year Party at the CeLS foyer on 13 February 2008. It was an auspicious day as it coincided with the 7^th day of the Lunar New Year, where it is traditionally known as “renri” or, the common man’s birthday, the day when everyone grows a year older.

The programme kicked off with a note of welcome and good wishes by Prof Ong Choon Nam, OLS Exco, Programme Leaders and representatives from the various programmes for the year of the Rat. A short quiz was conducted to test guests on their knowledge of the Lunar New Year.

Prof Ong with Programme Leaders
wishing one and all “Gong Xi Fa Cai”.

Mr Wu Youtong, a graduate student from the Department of Community, Occupational and Family Medicine (COFM) rendered a song item accompanied on the guitar by Dr Ong Wei Shi, Research Fellow, Toxicology Programme and Mr Andrew Wee, Laboratory Technologist, COFM.

As it was the day when Yu Sheng, or raw fish salad is eaten, guests were involved in the tossing of 30 platters of Yu Sheng. Prof Ong Choon Nam led everyone in the step by step procedure of adding the ingredients to the salad with the accompanying auspicious sayings for the tossing of the Yu Sheng.

Mr New Leong Boon, a retired staff who previously worked with the Office of Estate and Development entertained staff with his calligraphy skills as he wrote Chinese couplets on new year wishes for guests to take home.

Visit by President of Deutsche Forschungsgemein Schaft (DFG)

Prof Dr Ing Mathias Kleiner, President of Deutsche Forschungsgemein Schaft (DFG), German Research Foundation, visited CeLS on 21 February 2008. Prof Ong Choon Nam, Director of OLS gave an overview of OLS. Prof Ong together with Immunology Programme Leader, Prof Michael Kemeny, hosted the tour of the Immunology Laboratory.

Prof Kemeny (extreme left) with the
German delegation.

OLS Distinguished Lecture Series

An OLS Distinguished Lecture was held on 18 February 2008 at the CeLS Auditorium. The speaker was Prof Wah Chiu from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. He delivered a lecture titled “Cryo-EM of Biological Nano-Machine and Cell”.

Prof Wah Chiu during his
presentation.