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!
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.
Promotion
Our congratulations to Dr Jayaraman Sivaraman, Dept of Biological Sciences and member of the Biophysical Sciences Programme for his promotion to Associate Professorship.
2nd International Singapore Symposium of Immunology
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 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]
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]
Visits
Visit by NRF RF Candidates
Dr Grotenbreg (left) briefing the visitors.
LSI hosted 14 National Research Foundation Research Fellowship candidates when they visited CeLS on Saturday 10 Jan 2009. They toured the Immunology Labs led by Dr Gijsbert Grotenbreg, previous NRF Research Fellowship awardee. Following the lab tour they adjourned to the staff lounge on level 3 where Dr Grotenbreg shared his experiences with NRF.
Visit by Dr Terry Hazen & Dr Gary Andersen
Dr Terry Hazen & Dr Gary Andersen from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory visited CeLS on Friday, 16 January 2009. LSI Scientific Manager Dr Sumita Anant gave a briefing on LSI and later brought them for a tour to the labs and facilities.
Immunology Seminar
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Immunology Programme
“topic to be advised”
Prof Duane Gubler
Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore
Date: Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Time: 12nn – 1pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium
“New insights on antigenic variation in Trypanosoma brucei, the agent of African sleeping sickness”
Prof George AM Cross
André and Bella Meyer Professor of Molecular Parasitology, The Rockefeller University, USA
Date: Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Time: 12nn – 1pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium
“Improving anti-viral immunity: A key to eliminating persistent viral infections”
Dr Mariapia A Degli-Esposti
Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia
Date: Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Time: 12nn – 1pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium
Waseda-NUS Joint Symposium
NUS IP Policy Roadshow
Organised by NUS Industry Liaison Office
Date: Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Time: 11 – 12pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium
For enquiries, please contact Dr Sumita Anant at lsiasa@nus.edu.sg.
“Problems and Pitfalls in Protocol Approval”
(A talk jointly organised by LSI, LAC and IACUC)
Date: Monday, 2 March 2009
Time: 10am – 12.30pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium
For enquiries, please contact Mrs Ellice Lim at ellice@nus.edu.sg.
Grantsmanship Workshop 2009
Date: Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Time: 9am – 1pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium
For enquiries, please contact Mrs Ellice Lim at ellice@nus.edu.sg.
Waseda-NUS Joint Symposium
(A joint symposium between LSI Medicinal Chemistry Programme, NUS and Institute of Chemical Biology, Waseda University, Japan)
“Chemical EPIgenomics -Fusion of Epigenetics, Stem-Cell Biology and Chemical Biology”
Date: Thursday, 12 March 2009
Time: 10am
Venue: University Hall, Level 2, NUS
*No registration required.
For enquiries, please contact A/Prof Chang Young-Tae at chmcyt@nus.edu.sg.
Editorial Team
Lim Chwee Teck
Sumita Anant
Ellice Lim
Siti Haryanti
Aziz Salim
LSI Programmes Seminars
Bioinformatics & Computational Biology Programme
“News from the RNA World”
Professor Peter F Stadler
University of Leipzig, Germany
Date: Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Time: 3 – 4pm
Venue: SR5 (COM-02-01), School of Computing
LSI Distinguished Lecture Series
LSI Distinguished Lecture Series
“Immune Regulatory Role of Dendritic Cells During Sterile Inflammation”
Professor Paola Castagnoli
Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN)
Date: Thursday, 5 February 2009
Time: 4 – 5pm
Venue: CeLS Auditorium
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LSI Seminar
LSI Seminar
Prof Yong-Keun Jung at the seminar.
Prof Yong-Keun Jung from School of Biological Science/BIO-MAX Institute, Seoul National University, Korea gave a talk on “Role of Adenylate Kinase 2 in Cell Death and Cell Growth” on 15 January 2009 at the CeLS Seminar Room 2. A/Prof Shen Han Ming from the Department of Community, Occupational and Family Medicine and LSI Toxicology Programme chaired the talk.
LSI Distinguished Lecture Series
in January:
LSI Distinguished Lecture Series
Prof Tannenbaum delivering his talk.
An LSI Distinguished Lecture was held on 8 January 2009 at the CeLS Auditorium. The speaker was Professor Steven R Tannenbaum. He is currently an Underwood-Prescott Professor of Toxicology at the Department of Biological Engineering and Professor of Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. He delivered a lecture titled “The Chemistry of NO in Cancer: Carcinogenesis and Cancer Cell Survival”. This lecture was chaired by LSI Director, Professor Ong Choon Nam.