10th Bioengineering Anniversary Celebration-29th October 2011
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Speech by Prof Tan Eng Chye, |
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Distinguished guests, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen A very good evening to everyone. On behalf of the NUS, I bid all our friends and guests here a warm welcome to the Department of Bioengineering’s 10th anniversary celebrations. In the late 1990s, Singapore identified the biomedical sciences as an area with tremendous growth potential, and decided to push it as a major national focus. In 2000, the government launched the biomedical sciences initiative. The vision was for Singapore to be the Biopolis of Asia, that is, a leading international centre for biomedical R&D that advances human health. The following year, 2011, NUS established the Office of Life Sciences (which has since been renamed the Life Sciences Institute), to develop the university into a world-class research and education hub in the life sciences. The Life Sciences Institute would play a pivotal role in coordinating, integrating and facilitating life science research throughout the University and in affiliated institutions. The Faculty of Engineering had much foresight – it was quick to recognize the potential of the Life Sciences industry, and initiated the interdisciplinary program in Bioengineering. The program later drew participation from the School of Computing, the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, the Faculty of Dentistry, and the Faculty of Science. And that was how Bioengineering at the NUS was born. Thankfully, that was not the end of the story. In fact, Bioengineering has had a very successful run. The Bioengineering program evolved, first into a division, and later to become the Department of Bioengineering. Barely ten years old, and the Bioengineering Department’s record of scientific publications and citation counts now ranks among the world’s top 10 bioengineering programs. This is a laudable feat. Many of the Department’s students and faculty members are winning coveted awards, such as the IES Prestigious Engineering Achievement Awards, the Tan Kah Kee Young Inventor’s Awards, the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition, and the Siemens Healthcare Competition amongst others. The Department has also pioneered several university startups, the notable ones are Clearbridge Biomedics, Clearbridge NanoMedics and Ayoxxa. This surely is testament to the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship that the Department has fostered. My heartiest congratulations to the Department of Bioengineering for the fine work done, and for all your accomplishments thus far. I am also very heartened to witness the numerous curricular enhancements and initiatives the Department has implemented to improve on the education it delivers. Bioengineering students now have the opportunity to embark on week-long study trips to Korea University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, as well as other top universities in Taiwan and Thailand. On top of student exchange programs and the NUS Overseas College program, the Department also has a tie-up with Zhejiang University Students can spend 3 weeks there to study alongside Zhejiang University students on a special term study abroad program for undergraduates. These unique international learning experiences will serve to stimulate and broaden the mindsets of our students, equip them with global readiness and savvy which will allow them to be more effective employees when they enter the biomedical industry in future. The Department of Bioengineering has come so far. Still, it is but the beginning and the best is yet to be. Bioengineering is a most fascinating and exciting field, and its prospects are very bright. Developments in science and technology focusing on humans will become the mainstream future trend. Developed countries are rapidly aging and developing economies are confronting this inevitable phenomenon soon. There is a huge and insatiable demand for the development of technologies relating to medical care, health and welfare. Quite fundamentally, what is a surgeon, without his instruments and equipment? Apart from the surgeon and his scalpel, everything else in the operating theatre (including the scalpel today) is a product of bioengineering. It may not be immediately obvious, but bioengineering has contributed immensely to clinical medicine over the past 50 years. Take medical imaging for example, before the 1960s, we had X-rays, and then ultrasonic imaging in the 1960s, computed tomography (or CT scans) in the 70s, magnetic resonance imaging or MRI in the 80s, and positron emission tomography in the 90s. All of which, had evolved to become mainstream and widely used technologies over time. There are many other great medical equipment achievements too, such as the ECG and the cardiac pacemaker, scopes, stents and catheters, artificial joints and blood vessels, laser therapy and the list goes on. Bioengineering is at the very heart of it all. This also underscores how much potential and how far bioengineering can transform medicine and healthcare delivery. Developments in medical technologies are not merely limited to the realm of scientific research, but they lead to concrete improvements in human health and healthcare delivery, and bring tangible benefits to society. It is a most exciting field to be in, and I sincerely hope that the NUS Department of Bioengineering will seize the opportunities to engage in cutting-edge research, to discover and to develop innovative technologies. R&D is a long and arduous process, and it requires much tenacity. But, the Bioengineering Department is today well-poised to undertake groundbreaking research. The university will continue to be highly supportive of Bioengineering. We have set up a Bioengineering Corridor and Bioengineering Cluster on campus, which houses state-of-the-art equipment for research in tissue engineering, drug delivery, biomechanics and nanobiotechnology. The Department is also located in close proximity to the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and the National University Hospital. This provides a unique ecosystem for engineers, scientists and clinicians from different disciplines to come together to reach a deeper and more holistic understanding of the problems at hand, and to brainstorm on comprehensive solutions. Some of the most pressing medical challenges in Asia today are in cancer, cardiovascular diseases and ageing. In response, the Department has mostly aptly embarked on an ambitious Engineering in Medicine Initiative to look at the four key areas of Point-of-Care Diagnostics, Therapeutics and Delivery Systems, Medical Robotics and Neuro-engineering. Beyond the NUS and NUH, there is also a vibrant and emerging bio-tech community that we can tap on. Today, Singapore is Asia’s leading bio-cluster. More than 100 global biomedical sciences companies are engaging in a variety of business operations in Singapore. And over 30 medical technology companies are carrying out R&D activities such as value engineering and product development for regional and global markets. I am also happy to hear that the Bioengineering Department plans to leverage on strategic global partnerships with the foremost institutes in the world to propel its research. These include the Singapore-MIT SMART Centre, the Zhejiang University and the Global Enterprise for Micro-Mechanics and Molecular Medicine among others. In closing, I would like to thank all faculty members and staff of the Department of Bioengineering for your hard work, and for doing NUS proud. You have built up a strong team and are well-positioned to take on new challenges, to reach for greater heights in research and education. Keep up the good work, and I wish the NUS Department of Bioengineering every success. Thank you.
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