Singapore: Leader in biomedical sciences

The fourth pillar of Singapore's economy is the specialized arena of biomedical sciences.

Singapore had been poised to launch a new direction in economic development post 2000. After the announcement of the first draft of human genome in June 2000, the Singapore government decided to launch biomedical sciences as the fourth pillar of industry. The focus on biomedical sciences has been due to some good reasons. As opposed to the existing chemical, electronics and engineering industries, which faced regional competition due to low labor cost, biomedical sciences has a "high barrier entry" as it is very capital intensive. It is a high-end industry and needs a lot of good, well-researched products. Moreover, the potential for the growth of the biomedical sciences is tremendous as against agriculture and non-medical devices. The global human therapeutic industry will be worth $27 billion by 2008 and human diagnostics will be a $4.3-billion industry.

Universities and institutes

There are three local universities in Singapore-The National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Singapore Management University (SMU). In addition, BioPolis, the biomedical research hub of Singapore, has 12 A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology And Research), like the BioInformatics Institute (BII), the Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI), the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) and the Institute of Bioengineering & Nanotechnology (IBN) which conduct a variety of short and long-term training programs in association with the universities.

In addition to local universities, leading international universities have increased the level and scope of tertiary education in Singapore. Some leading international universities, which have collaborated with local institutions to launch their presence in Singapore include Georgia Institute of Technology-The Logistics Institute, Asia Pacific, Johns Hopkins University-Johns Hopkins Singapore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)-Singapore MIT Alliance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Stanford University-Singapore Stanford Partnership, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania-Wharton SMU Research Centre and the Technische Universitat Munchen-German Institute of Science and Technology.

Scholarships

The ASEAN* Undergraduate Scholarship (AUS) is awarded to freshmen who are citizens and permanent residents of a member country of ASEAN. SembCorp Industries Undergraduate Scholarship is another popular scholarship.

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