Opening Address by Mrs Tan Ching Yee, Permanent Secretary (Health), at National Medical Research Council Awards Ceremony and Translational Clinical Research Symposium 2012, on 31 October 2012

Introduction

1.    A very Good Morning to all. Thank you for joining Chairman A*STAR and myself today at this year’s NMRC Awards Ceremony and Translational Clinical Research (TCR) Symposium 2012.

2.    The annual Awards Ceremony started off as a platform to recognise Clinician Scientists who are supported through our various Talent Development and Human Capital awards. The TCR Symposium was inaugurated in 2010 to showcase research highlights from our TCR programmes, and to promote the spirit of TCR in Singapore’s biomedical and healthcare research landscape.

3.    It is timely to combine the Awards Ceremony and the TCR symposium. In this way, we bring together the biomedical and healthcare research family, to provide the opportunity for networking and potential collaborations amongst individuals from academia, industry and the healthcare institutions.

Biomedical Sciences (BMS) research in Singapore   

4.    Biomedical research in Singapore has come a long way since we first embarked on the BMS initiative in 2000.

a.    If we think roughly in five-year phases, in the first phase from 2000 to 2005, the focus was on building a strong foundation by getting a critical mass of basic science research talent into Singapore so that we could jumpstart BMS in a big way in Singapore.

b.    In the second phase from 2006 to 2010, we built upon the strong foundations already established, and focused on developing stronger translational and clinical research capability; from bench to bedside and into the community.

5.    In Phase III where we are today, there is increased emphasis in research which will yield stronger healthcare and economic outcomes. This is a logical next step in the evolution of the local biomedical research landscape. In this phase, substantial support and investments have been provided to spur innovations and to enhance knowledge translation for health and economic outcomes.

Growing Our Talent Pool for Clinician Scientists

6.    Even as we build up our talent base in the basic sciences, we need to redouble our efforts to nurture more clinician scientists. To achieve this, one of the programmes that has been developed is the Transition Award, which was first launched during the NMRC Awards Ceremony last year.

7.    The Transition Award aims to support budding clinician scientists who have just started out, and we have high hopes for all of you because we hope to see amongst you, future winners of more prestigious awards, and as well as established clinician scientists. This initiative supports clinicians who have just completed their research training or PhD. This year, we are pleased to recognise the first batch of Transition Award recipients. It is very gratifying that the investments we have made have shown results.

8.    Several of these Transition Award recipients were also past winners of our various research training scholarship and fellowship programmes, so we are glad to see the progress they are making towards becoming full-fledged Clinician Scientists.  Just to name a couple:

a.    Dr Ng Oon Tek from Tan Tock Seng Hospital - who was supported under the NMRC Research Training Fellowship for his two-year research training in Johns Hopkins Medical Institution. For his Transition Award project, he will investigate whether particular strains of HIV are more prevalent compared to others.

b.    Dr Jimmy Lee from the Institute of Mental Health – who was a scholar under the Master of Clinical Investigation (MCI) programme. He will investigate more reliable and objective tools to help diagnose and monitor patients with schizophrenia, through blood-based biomarkers.

9.    Besides these programmes for the budding Clinician Scientists, today we will also be giving out the Clinician Scientists Award (CSA) for the more established clinician scientists, and the STaR awards for the most outstanding of our local and overseas talent in translational research.

10. The CSA provides funding support for clinician scientists, who possess an excellent track record in research. The support enables them to carry out internationally competitive research, which aims to eventually translate to better treatment and better health outcomes. We have a large number of outstanding awardees,  among them;

a.    Dr Christopher Chen from the National University Health System (NUHS). His research aims to understand how dementia condition progresses, which will help in paving the way for more effective treatment in this area; and

b.    Dr Cheng Ching-Yu from NUHS, whose research is to study the genetic architecture for Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) in Asians. AMD is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in the elderly, due to the damage of the central part of the retina. His investigation will help in developing screening tools to customise cost-effective treatment plans for individual patients.

11. Our STaR awardees contribute a wealth of invaluable knowledge and experience to the medical and research scene in Singapore. They play important roles as mentors, teachers and role models to budding clinician scientists and younger researchers. The STaR awardees play an important role in developing our local TCR landscape, and help our young.

12. It is our great pleasure to have one of our STaR Award recipients, Professor Stuart Cook with us here today. He joins three other internationally-renowned researchers as a STAR awardee this year.

Translational Clinical Research

13. Besides the need to increase the talent pool, we recognise that success in biomedical R&D requires extensive collaboration between researchers and industry partners. The TCR Symposium today is a great opportunity to bring all of us together in one single event, to share, learn, network and collaborate, all for the purpose of pursuing healthcare research excellence and innovations towards a better healthcare and future.

14. Many of our speakers here today are the investigators who lead the various TCR Flagship programmes. This flagship programme was an important key initiative in BMS Phase II, which supports research that facilitates the translation of basic science into clinical applications through integrating, coordinating and leveraging on the full chain of research capabilities.

15. This programme also aims to build up a critical mass of excellent researchers in various disease areas to position Singapore as a leader in scientific and medical research.

16. Most of the TCR flagship projects have been running for at least three years, and there are promising outcomes and results that we have begun to see. The respective groups will be show-casing and sharing these in the parallel sessions later.

Launch of the new Clinical Trial Grant

17. As part of our efforts in building capabilities in clinical trials, we would also like to take the opportunity to announce the launch of a new Clinical Trial Grant programme to be administered by NMRC. A total of S$80million has been allocated for this programme.

18. The programme aims to support innovative and high-impact clinical trials and the development of novel therapies, interventions and diagnostics, focusing on healthcare needs. It is hoped that such research will foster new directions in translational biomedical research, and further encourage multidisciplinary and multi-institutional collaborations. NMRC will be sharing the details of this new grant programme tomorrow morning and in subsequent communications to the research community.

Conclusion

19. Investment in research is important for the future, as the new knowledge created helps us to better respond the multiple challenges facing healthcare.

20. The Ministry of Health and its partners, notably the Agency for Science and Technology Research, will continue to invest in Translational and Clinical Research and nurture our people.

21. I extend my heartiest congratulations to all our winners today, and thank their mentors, teachers, colleagues and families for their support. I look forward to all your contributions to medicine and science, and towards building a better and healthier future.

Thank you.

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