At Duke-NUS’ milestone event held at the Duke-NUS Amphitheatre in the Khoo Teck Puat Building, guests-of-honour Mr Chan Chun Sing, Minister for Education and Mr Ong Ye Kung, Minister for Health, were joined by NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye, members of the Duke-NUS Governing Board as well as distinguished guests from the Ministries of Education and Health, Duke-NUS’ academic medicine partner, SingHealth, and members of the Duke-NUS community as they commemorated the fourth phase of the partnership between Duke and NUS, where they also toured a specially curated exhibition showcasing the School’s achievements in medical education, research, innovation and academic medicine.
“…in medicine, where there is a concept of a clinician-scientist – where you practise and yet you are a scientist, and you publish but at the same time, you are still performing surgeries. That has always been something special about the medical faculty, and I think it is that essence that makes Duke-NUS special as well. I am fairly confident you will do well in Phase IV, and I am fairly confident that we will have a Phase V. I think we have ourselves a very good partner in Duke University. Thank you very much for all the hard work. May you go higher, wider, deeper.”
Minister Ong Ye Kung
Duke-NUS receives $5 million gift in support of neuroscience research
At the SingHealth Duke-NUS Gala Dinner held in support of research and education on 28 January 2023, Duke-NUS received a $5 million gift from the GK Goh family in honour of Mr Goh Geok Khim, Founder and Executive Chairman of G.K. Goh Holdings, in support of neuroscience research, who is also Chairman Emeritus of the international executive board of Temasek Foundation International and a member of the board of Temasek Foundation Ltd.
The gift will establish a proposed centre for neuroscience research that will enable scientists from Duke-NUS to investigate the mechanisms behind the ageing of the human brain as well as those underpinning degenerative disorders, with the aim of developing effective new therapeutics and strategies to slow the ageing process and treat debilitating neurological illnesses.
“The human brain continues to astound scientists with its complexity and beauty. This impactful gift will enable our scientists to pursue new insights about how we can slow the impacts of ageing on the brain. Such new knowledge will enable us—and our partners—to deliver innovative bench-to-bedside interventions that improve quality of life for longer, thereby creating new opportunities for people to enjoy life and remain actively engaged in their communities”
Duke-NUS Dean Prof Thomas Coffman
A transformational gift of $50 million from the Lee Foundation, also announced at the gala dinner, will support the advancement of innovation and research in the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre (AMC) Health Discovery. The National Neuroscience Institute also received a a $9 million gift from Mr Cheng Wai Keung, Chairman, SingHealth, in support of the “Ecosystem for Dementia” programme.
Duke-NUS scientists and clinician-scientists shine at the National Medical Research Council Award 2022
At the National Medical Research Council Award 2022, two teams from the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre received the Open Fund-Large Collaborative Grant (OF-LCG) of S$25 million each for their research in liver cancer and glaucoma respectively.
One of the teams is a multi-institute team led by Professor Aung Tin from the SingHealth Duke-NUS Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences Academic Clinical Programme, who is working on a five-year project focused on tackling and reducing glaucoma blindness with emerging technologies, aptly abbreviated to Target.
The other winning team is led by Professor Pierce Chow, whose research focuses on precision medicine in liver cancer across an Asia-Pacific Network (PLANet 2.0).
Last year, four staff received the Dean’s Excellence Awards (DEA) for their outstanding contributions to the School at the bi-annual staff townhall.
They were: Mr Irwin Wong, Director of Information Technology from the Office of Corporate Services, Ms Tammie Zhu, a senior manager from the Office of Education, Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Dr Suzanne Goh and Professor Tazeen H Jafar from the Office of Research, who were awarded the DEA in the areas of leadership, administration, education and research respectively.
Recipients of the DEA with Professor Thomas Coffman, Dean Duke-NUS (L-R): Mr Irwin Wong, Ms Tammie Zhu, Dr Suzanne Goh and Professor Tazeen Jafar
“I feel much honoured that our paper made the cover of the American Journal of Public Health! This would not have been possible without the guidance and support of my supervisor Associate Professor Bibhas Chakraborty, and Professor Roger Vaughan. With this review, we would like to promote the application of a modern trial design—the sequential multiple assignment randomised trial to advance public health by summarising recent methodological and practical developments in the field. We believe that our paper is a great place to start for researchers wishing to construct evidence-based adaptive interventions to improve the future healthcare for disease treatment and prevention,” shared Ms Xinru Wang, a student from the Duke-NUS PhD Programme in Quantitative Biology.