Four clinician scientists receive the Clinician Scientist Awards (CSAs), which provide between three and five years of research funding and salary support. They are specialists from various backgrounds including cancer, obstetrics & gynaecology and ophthalmology (see factsheet). Together with the earlier group of awardees, a total of ten CSAs are given out this year.
The CSA is part of the overall talent development programme under phase II of the Singapore’s Biomedical Sciences (BMS) Initiative, co-chaired by Permanent Secretary Health, Ms Yong Ying-I and Chairman A*STAR Mr Lim Chuan Poh, to build up a pool of these personnel, supernumerary to clinical service needs. There are currently more than 80 clinician scientists working in public hospitals and national disease centres. These clinician scientists spend more than half of their time doing medical and translational research.
Clinician scientists are a critical ingredient for the success of Singapore’s translational and clinical research efforts. They play a key role in developing novel, interesting research hypotheses that will one day translate into better healthcare delivery for Singapore patients. Going forward, the programme is committed to assemble a talented pipeline of clinician scientists and investigators, to support translational and clinical research.
Clinician Scientist Awards recipients (December 2009)
Name | Institution | Area of Research |
Senior Investigators |
Dr Lee Soo Chin | National University Health System | Breast Cancer |
Investigators |
Dr Jerry Chan | National University Health System | Intrauterine Gene Therapy |
Dr Toh Han Chong | National Cancer Centre | Nasopharyngeal cancer |
Dr Louis Tong | Singapore National Eye Centre | Ophthalmology |
About Clinician Scientist Award
The CSA awardees will spend at least 70% of their time doing research relevant to their areas of specialty and the remaining to see patients. This enables them to stay in touch with medicine and at the same time, explore and expand new research grounds by bringing insights from their clinical work to the laboratories. The selection of the CSA awardees is based on scientific merits of their research proposals and their track records. There are two calls each year for the CSA.
The award has two categories: Senior Investigator (SI) and Investigator (Inv). The former caters to senior doctors who are already actively involved in highly productive research and hold at least one peer-reviewed active research grant. They will be funded for a period of five years under the scheme. The Inv category caters to younger doctors with the potential of becoming independent investigators and who wish to develop a career in translational and clinical research.
The CSA is funded by the National Research Foundation and administered by the National Medical Research Council of the MOH.
Annex A
Ministry of Health & A*STAR