The SAB emphasized the need for continued support in terms of research scholarships, space and funding from OLS and the Faculty of Science. This has been achieved to a large extent.

The Program was granted S$1 272 945 from the Office of Life Sciences and $150 000 from Faculty of Science for the financial year 2006. This enabled the program to make two additional appointments (Laboratory Manager and Computational Manager) and purchase critical equipment for its members. Equipment purchased in 2006 are listed here.

Twelve research scholarships were assigned to the Program by the Board of Graduate Studies for the academic year 2006/2007. All scholarships have been taken up and there are presently 34 students in the Medicinal Chemistry Graduate Program. In order to promote multidisciplinary collaboration, graduate students may be supervised by an associate member working in collaboration with a core member. Additional scholarships will be allotted to members who have demonstrated a strong record of scientific productivity in terms of acquisition of external funds and publications.

MedChem Laboratory

There is a dedicated facility for solvent distillation and an instrument room for several pieces of equipment purchased with program funds. These include LCMS (2 units), HPLC and GC. The program has also acquired a parallel synthesizer for solution and solid phase chemistry (ChemSpeed ®) and a robotic substance handling platform (Sciclone ®) that can be integrated to a microwave synthesizer [Biotage Initiator ®]. The Medicinal Chemistry / Chemical Biology Corridor is significant in that it brings together program members in Chemistry into a single location.In addition, Pharmacy’s Medicinal Chemistry Research Laboratory is just adjacent to the Medicinal Chemistry / Chemical Biology corridor, and Biological Sciences’ Functional Genomics and Structural Biology research groups are in an adjoining block. Therefore, we have a strong thematic cluster starting from Biological Sciences’ Block S3 Levels 1-4 (Structural Biology/ Functional Genomics/Proteomics/Chemical Biology) to Pharmacy’s Medicinal Chemistry (Block S4, Level 3) and Chemistry’s Chemical Biology / Medicinal Chemistry (Block S5 Level 3), a feature which promotes regular interaction among students and faculty members.

Funding

Members acquired S$ 2 811 735 of funding for the year 2006 (Jan – Dec 2006).50.6 % of these funds were obtained from external grants, mainly Biomedical Research Council (BMRC), while the rest were obtained from the Academic Research Fund (ARF), Ministry of Education (MOE), Republic of Singapore.