NUS Medicine opens new research facility to study infectious diseases
Published: 02 May 2015
A new facility that boosts Singapore’s research efforts in existing infectious diseases and its defenses against new outbreaks was officially opened by Minister for Health, Minster Gan Kim Yong today.
Designed to biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) standards, the second highest rating for such laboratories, this new research facility is fully capable of handling dangerous biological substances – signifying a new era of translational research for infectious diseases in Singapore.
Based at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine’s flagship building, the Centre for Translational Medicine, the 650-square metre laboratory has been carefully designed to accommodate researchers to study some of the most infectious diseases known to man and to find solutions to dealing with these dangerous microorganisms.
“Working with deadly biological agents requires a high containment, highly safe and secure, laboratory. With no such facility available previously in NUS, we could simply not work on some of the most important viruses and bacteria like the avian flu and tuberculosis. Now we can look at developing new diagnostics, vaccines and drugs for such infectious diseases.” Said Associate Professor Thomas Dick, the laboratory’s Director.
The facility will strengthen Singapore’s preparedness to handle new outbreaks and epidemics.
Said Associate Professor Yeoh Khay Guan, Dean of the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, “Singapore, being a densely populated city, is particularly vulnerable to existing and new infectious diseases. With this new laboratory, our researchers are now in a position to work safely and effectively on pathogens that will ultimately lead to knowledge and understanding that will be of benefit to Singapore.”
Research at the facility commenced last year and work at the laboratory is already yielding results. Assoc Prof Dick and his team have found a drug used to treat a certain cancer to work very effectively against tuberculosis bacteria, making it an attractive lead compound for the development of new tuberculosis drugs. The team has already filed two patent applications for new tuberculosis treatments. Currently Asia accounts for 59% of all tuberculosis cases globally and Singapore gets about 2,000 victims a year.
The laboratory currently has seven principal investigators working on more than 20 projects with institutions such as Harvard and Rutgers University and with experts from various disciplines at the NUS and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research.
The laboratory boasts intrusion alarms, round-the-clock closed-circuit television monitoring and a security system that grants access by verifying the vein profile of an authorized person’s hand.
The facility is one of seven such laboratories in Singapore and is funded by the Ministry of Health, the National Medical Research Council and the NUS.
