28 March 2008

Cancer Research Centre of Excellence at NUS

The NUS Cancer Research Centre of Excellence, expected to be one of the world's leading centres for translational cancer research, is Singapore's second Research Centre of Excellence (RCE) -- after the Centre for Quantum Technologies which is also hosted at NUS. Announced on 28 March by the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Cancer RCE will offer an unprecedented opportunity for a world-class team of international faculty to work alongside NUS' own faculty.

FIGHTING CANCER: From left: Prof Barry Halliwell, NUS Deputy President (Research & Technology); Prof John Wong, Dean, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Prof Daniel Tenen, Director, Cancer RCE at the press conference to announce the Cancer Research Centre of Excellence at NUS.

Director of the new Centre, Prof Daniel Tenen from Harvard Medical School and now a faculty member with the NUS Department of Medicine, will lead the Cancer Stem Cells Programme which focuses on cancers of particular importance to Singaporeans. His team will study the role of transcription factors and related genes involved in self-renewal of normal and cancer stem cells.

Prof Yoshiaki Ito, Principal Investigator, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology and Director, Oncology Research Institute; Assoc Prof Goh Boon Cher, Senior Consultant, Department of Haematology-Oncology, National University Hospital (NUH); and Assoc Prof Patrick Tan of the Duke-NUS Medical School as well as Group Leader, Genome Institute of Singapore will also share their expertise. They will be leading specialty programmes which include the Cancer Biology Programme (led by Prof Ito) which aims to better understand the shared pathways of transformation among the divergent group of tumours endemic in Asian population; Genomic Oncology Programme (led by Assoc Prof Tan) which aims to guide the use of existing cancer therapies besides accelerating the evaluation of early-phase clinical compounds and identifying novel targets and cellular pathways for development of new therapeutics. Experimental Therapeutics Programme (led by Assoc Prof Goh) aims to provide the research infrastructure to support the other programmes in defining novel therapeutic targets and examining the behaviour of novel therapeutics in humans.  

Other prominent scientists joining the Centre also include Prof Yoichi Taya from Japan's National Cancer Center Research Institute and Prof Fu Xin Yuan, formerly from Yale University and Indiana University.

Said Prof Tenen: "There is outstanding cancer research going on in NUS and Singapore has the potential to become one of the leaders in the treatment of cancer affecting all ethnic groups. The symbiotic relationship between the medical school and hospital has been recognised in leading centres around the world and in the US as possibly the best platform for a rapid and efficient transit from bench to bedside and back again. I am excited and encouraged by the strong commitment that the Singapore Government has made in the biomedical science arena and proud to have been invited to take part in this initiative."

NRF and MOE will support the Cancer RCE with a total funding of $172 million over seven years. The Centre expects to train 100 graduate students and 70 postdoctoral fellows in its laboratories in its first five years.