These new relationships will focus on early stage research projects of interest to GSK and the researchers, and were put in place just eight months after a GSK symposium introduced the Academic Centre for Excellence [ACE] to Singapore’s scientific community. ACE – a virtual community established by GSK to promote partnering with academics in Singapore on drug discovery projects that are of mutual interest – is another approach to GSK’s R&D strategy to seek out the best science externally as well as internally.
“We set a high standard of both scientific rigor and transitional potential in our search for projects: we have been impressed with the quality of the proposals,” said Dr Moncef Slaoui, chairman of R&D at GSK. “We anticipate this is just the beginning of a significant partnership between ACE and the leading scientists of Singapore to accelerate growth in medicine discovery and development in Asia.”
The four projects selected for collaborations address projects in ophthalmology, regenerative medicine, and neurodegeneration, inclusive of identifying new Biomarkers, new model systems and elucidating mechanisms of action around innovative medicines.
Projects for award funding were selected by the ACE Steering Committee, made up of members from the Singapore biomedical research community and GSK senior leadership.
"These Investigators represent our inaugural grant recipients and demonstrate that an “accelerator” for translational discovery projects also supports the needs of researchers in Singapore,” said Dr Paul Bolno, Vice President, Worldwide Business Development. “We see ACE as an important piece of GSK’s plans to build a stronger research and development presence in Singapore.”
ACE scientific projects The six principal investigators selected from Singapore are: Tien Yin Wong (Singapore Eye Research Institute) Christopher Chen (National University Hospital) Carol Cheung (Singapore Eye Research Institute) Xu Feng (A*STAR – Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences) Gavin Stewart Dawe (National University of Singapore, School of Medicine) Eyleen Goh (Duke-NUS, Graduate Medical School)
Projects approved by ACE receive funding. The selection of projects is determined by the Steering Committee, which includes GSK senior leadership and members from the Singapore biomedical research community (Biomedical Research Council, National Medical Research Council, National University of Singapore, Duke-National University of Singapore). The Steering Committee meets on a quarterly basis to award funding and projects may be submitted at any time. For more about ACE please visit: www.ace.gsk.com.
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