Outstanding Scientific Talent Conferred Singapore’s Highest Honours

1. President’s Science and Technology Medal (PSTM)

   Professor Hong Wanjin
   Executive Director, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)
   Professor, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS

2. President’s Technology Award (PTA)

   Professor Wang Rong
   President’s Chair in Civil and Environment Engineering, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore)
   Director, Singapore Membrane Technology Centre, Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute, NTU Singapore
   Co-Founder, H2MO Technology Pte Ltd and Aromatec Pte Ltd

President’s Science and Technology Medal 2022

Professor Hong Wanjin
Executive Director, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)
Professor, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS)

“For his outstanding contributions in building up the biomedical sciences research ecosystem in Singapore, particularly through strengthening public sector, academic and clinical research partnerships, nurturing scientific talent, and promoting innovation to support Singapore’s economic development”

Professor Hong Wanjin is an internationally renowned leader in molecular and cell biology. He is currently the Executive Director of A*STAR’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) and Professor at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine’s Department of Biochemistry. Professor Hong has dedicated over 30 years of his career to supporting the development of Singapore’s biomedical research ecosystem. In addition to pushing scientific excellence at IMCB, he has forged strong ties with institutes of higher learning (IHLs), the academic medical centres and hospitals, and industry partners, creating greater synergies across Singapore’s biomedical research ecosystem. He has also nurtured many local talents, who have gone on to become a critical part of Singapore’s scientific talent pool today.

Prof Hong joined IMCB in 1989, before it became an autonomous research institute under A*STAR. He was appointed Executive Director in 2011. Under his leadership, IMCB fostered strong collaborative relationships with the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), SingHealth, Duke-NUS Medical School, NTU Singapore, and NUS. He also set up joint programmes like the IMCB NCCS Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB) Singapore Oncogenome Laboratory, IMCB-NCCS Joint Programme, and SingHealth @ IMCB Fellows. These efforts allowed for more knowledge exchange and facilitated the translation of upstream discoveries to bring better benefits to patients.

During the 2003 SARS outbreak in Singapore, Prof Hong oversaw IMCB researchers in the development of two antibody-based tests to diagnose SARS, with GeneLab Diagnostics. As a result, IMCB received a National Day Award commendation for contributing to combating and containing SARS. He also established a collaborative anti-viral research lab that worked together with Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Baxter Vaccines.

Under Prof Hong’s leadership, IMCB has translated scientific discoveries into impact for A*STAR and Singapore. 15 spin-offs have come out of IMCB during the past seven years, which have raised approximately $30 million collectively to date. IMCB has also established joint labs with biotech companies like Tessa Therapeutics and LionTCR, to support their growth.

Prof Hong has played an active role in nurturing young scientists in A*STAR and the ecosystem. Working under Prof Hong’s leadership at IMCB, 17 scientists have been conferred prestigious national accolades and achievements including the Young Scientist Awards, and National Research Foundation Fellowships and Investigatorships. Others have gone on to become scientific entrepreneurs, university faculty member, and more, to contribute to better healthcare and social outcomes for Singapore. To date, IMCB has also trained more than 400 PhD students, and developed more than 1,000 postdoctoral fellows.

Prof Hong also has a distinguished career in the area of molecular and cell biology research. He has contributed significantly to the global scientific community’s understanding of membrane transport in the secretory and endocytic pathways, and the Hippo signaling pathway in human cancer. His contributions extend to editorial board appointments for top scientific journals like the journal of Biological Chemistry, Traffic, and Science Signalling; and he has been consistently invited to speak at international scientific symposia by Keystone and the American Association for Cancer Research.

Prof Hong’s research in Singapore has resulted in more than 300 peer-reviewed publications which have garnered over 27,000 citations internationally. He is a National Science Award winner (1999) and the recipient of many other prestigious awards including the CUSBEA Fellow (1983) and the 19th A-IMBN Arthur Kornberg Memorial Lecture Award (2016). This year, he was conferred the prestigious Singapore National Academy of Science Fellowship.

Prof Hong has held leadership positions in leading scientific associations, such as the President of the Science Council of Asia and member of the Board of Trustees for the Human Frontier Science Program. He has also held a range of local and international appointments on review and award selection panels.

President’s Technology Award 2022

Professor Wang Rong
President’s Chair in Civil and Environment Engineering, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore)
Director, Singapore Membrane Technology Centre, Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute, NTU Singapore
Co-Founder, H2MO Technology Pte Ltd and Aromatec Pte Ltd

“For her outstanding contributions to the field of membrane science and technology, leading to more energy-efficient liquid purification and desalination to support Singapore’s sustainability goals”

Professor Wang Rong is a world-leading scientist in the field of membrane science and technology. In the past 14 years, she has made many pioneering contributions in the development of novel membranes for use in applications such as energy-efficient desalination, water reclamation and wastewater treatment, liquid purification and gas separation, and is at the forefront in novel hybrid membrane system development. She is also successful in translating promising prototypes into commercial-sized membrane modules deployed in pilot-scale testing, in partnership with government agencies and industry, and has overseen the entire technology transfer value chain, from fundamental research to eventual commercial deployment.

NEWater, one of Singapore’s four National Taps, is a key pillar in the country’s efforts to strengthen water resilience and sustainability. Prof Wang’s research is well-aligned to the national goal of lowering the energy cost for water reclamation and achieving a lower carbon footprint. Prof Wang’s achievements include the development of a novel bio-programmable hollow fibre reverse osmosis membrane that leads to lower operating pressures and significant savings of up to 50 percent in the energy needed for pumping during the NEWater production process. The membrane uses a unique type of synthetic biomolecules to bring about higher water permeability, as compared to commercial membranes, while maintaining the same salt rejection rate. As a platform technology, this membrane can also be tailored for other types of water purification processes.

This membrane was successfully upscaled and tested in one of the operational water reclamation plants of Singapore’s national water agency PUB. Prof Wang’s team is now expanding the pilot to one that can produce 100m3 of NEWater daily. Since 2020, this technology has also been licensed to Prof Wang’s spinoff company, H2MO Technology Pte Ltd in Singapore, for worldwide commercialisation.

In 2010, Prof Wang and her team also pioneered the world’s first thin-film composite hollow fibre membrane for forward osmosis, which found use in the food and beverage industry to concentrate high-value products at a lower temperature. This preserves the flavour and nutrients that are usually lost in the energy-intensive vacuum evaporation process. A spinoff company, Aromatec Pte Ltd, was set up in 2018 and is now exporting pilot prototypes to clients worldwide, such as in China, Sweden, France, Canada and Brazil.

Prof Wang is a co-founder and the current Director of the SMTC at NEWRI, which is regarded as one of the top university-based membrane centres in the world. For her innovative scientific research, she was one of two Singapore-based scientists awarded the Alternative Water Resources Prize, under the prestigious Prince Sultan Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW), in 2016. She was also featured among the top 25 leading water researchers globally by LUX RESEARCH in 2013. In 2020, she was elected as Fellow of the Academy of Engineering, Singapore.

Prof Wang is an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Membrane Science, the flagship journal for the global membrane community, and serves as the current President of the Aseanian Membrane Society. From 2014 to 2020, she was the Chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NTU Singapore. Prof Wang was listed in the latest Singapore 100 Women in Tech (SG100WIT) as a strong advocate for young women to pursue careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). For her contributions to education, she received the Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 2022.

The Young Scientist Awards (YSA) are organised by the Singapore National Academy of Science and supported by A*STAR. The YSA recognise the accomplishments of researchers under 35, and who have shown the potential to scale greater heights. The awards also highlight the importance of investments in the country’s scientific talent pool.

List of YSA Winners 2022

Biological and Biomedical Sciences category
Dr Bi Renzhe
Senior Scientist, Institute of Bioengineering and Bioimaging, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)

Physical, Information and Engineering Sciences category
Dr Koh Ming Joo
President’s Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, National University of Singapore (NUS)

Young Scientist Awards Selection Committee

The judging committee for the Young Scientist Awards, which are organised and administered by the Singapore National Academy of Science (SNAS), is chaired by its President, A/Prof Lim Tit Meng, President, Singapore Association for the Advancement of Science and Chief Executive Officer, Science Centre Singapore.

Singapore National Academy of Science Young Scientist Awards 2022 Biological & Biomedical Sciences Category

Dr Bi Renzhe
Senior Scientist, Institute of Bioengineering and Bioimaging, Agency for Science, Technology and Research

“For his work in developing and translating novel bio-optical technologies and medical technology innovations”

Dr Bi’s research focuses on advancing biophotonics for medical technology innovation and clinical translation. He develops novel optical technologies and devices that will help clinicians quantitatively evaluate more suitable treatment for patients in areas such as cardiovascular disease, skin disorders, and cancer diagnosis.

Dr Bi has developed a non-invasive, portable smart optical skin analysis device. It is able to measure the chemical composition of skin using optical spectroscopy, and has been used for quantitative eczema assessment, treatment efficacy evaluation and skincare product validation through the collaboration with the National Skin Centre. One of his inventions has been licensed to an A*STAR spin-off company and developed into a medical device for COVID-19 patients monitoring, to help clinicians better predict potential health complications. He is currently working on a hybrid photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging system for breast cancer risk classification, which aims to significantly reduce the false positive rate of breast cancer diagnosis. The prototype is being tested in a clinical trial at the National University Hospital.

Recognising collaboration as key to translating biophotonics technologies from bench to bedside, Dr Bi works closely with clinicians from local hospitals to identify real-world challenges and explore potential solutions that can be easily adopted by healthcare staff and fit into current clinical workflows. He also collaborates with international scientists from the California Institute of Technology and University of Zurich to identify novel approaches to healthcare solutions.

Dr Bi also encourages the younger generation of researchers to pursue impactful and meaningful science through public talks and scientific outreach activities, and speaks regularly at international conferences and events.

Dr Bi has 34 peer reviewed publications with an h-index of 16 and total citation of 1,166. He also has 11 patent applications, and three granted patents that are assigned or licensed to Singapore-based medtech companies.

Singapore National Academy of Science Young Scientist Awards 2022 Physical, Information and Engineering Sciences Category

Dr Koh Ming Joo
President’s Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, National University of Singapore

“For his research in sustainable base metal catalysis and radical-based chemical technologies that revolutionise chemical synthesis”

Dr Koh focuses on the research of sustainable catalysis and radical chemistry by developing reaction technologies derived from abundant and nonprecious materials such as base metals. In the field of catalysis to drive chemical synthesis, many systems rely on the use of expensive and scarce precious metals to prepare catalysts, which can only mediate a limited range of reactions. Dr Koh’s work has led to the discovery of cheaper, energy-efficient catalysts and reagents that are capable of mediating unprecedented chemical transformations and radical-based reactions. These developments significantly enhance chemical synthesis efficiency and cut synthetic steps, benefiting chemists and companies in their applications.

Dr Koh and his team have leveraged their developed catalyst systems in innovative ways to transform cheap and abundant feedstock chemicals into value-added functional products with less energy consumption, less waste production and lower environmental footprint. This sustainable approach is sensitive to and aligned with critical global concerns, and is expected to revolutionise the way important chemicals are prepared, which will make a difference in many areas such as agriculture, therapeutics and plastic waste upcycling. Dr Koh also co-owns a number of patents, some of which have been licensed by XiMo AG, a Swiss-based company that develops catalysts for use across various chemical sectors.

Dr Koh nurtures the next generation of researchers by grooming talented post-doctoral, graduate and undergraduate students in his group. A number of members have gone on to win best student researcher awards or establish their own independent careers to become successful leaders in their own right.

Beyond research, Dr Koh has a keen interest to promote chemical science as a way of contributing back to society. He participates in local and international science forums as well as outreach programmes to share his research work and experiences with young science enthusiasts, inspiring them to pursue their interests in science.

Dr Koh has published over 50 papers in top-tier scientific journals including Nature, Science and Nature Chemistry, with a h-index of 24 and over 1,700 citations. For his research efforts, he is recognised as a rising chemistry leader by the American Chemical Society’s Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), and the first Singaporean among the Talented 12 cohort to receive the accolade in 2022. He is also a recipient of many prestigious research and teaching awards, including the NUS Inauguration Grant, Asian Core Program Lectureship Award, Excellent Young Teacher Award, TR35 Asia Pacific Award, TCI-SNIC Industry Award in Synthetic Chemistry, and Thieme Chemistry Journals Award.

Judging Process

Nominations for the awards start from January every year, and end with judging and endorsement of the awards in August. The nominations undergo a rigorous process of selection before being shortlisted for judging.

Award Selection Committees

The award selection panels comprised key representatives from the industry, academia, and research institutes. The main selection committee was chaired by Ms Yong Ying-I, Chairman, Central Provident Fund Board, and Senior Advisor, Ministry of Communications and Information

Professor Ling San, Deputy President and Provost, NTU Singapore, chaired the selection committee for the President’s Technology Award.

Professor Lee Eng Hin, Professor, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS, chaired the selection committee for the President’s Science Award.