10th Anniversary issue: Singapore

Professor Ai-Qun Liu

Professor Ai-Qun Liu (A. Q. Liu) is currently a Professor at the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He serves as an editor and editorial board member of more than 10 scientific journals. He is the author or co-author of over 200 publications including peer-reviewed journal papers and the author of two books. He won the Institute of Engineering Singapore Award in 2006 and the University Scholar award in 2007. He specializes in the research fields of MEMS and optofluidics.

With the long term aim of becoming one of the most research intensive, innovative and entrepreneurial economies in the world, Singapore's government will allocate S$16.1 billion to support research innovation and enterprise activities over the next five years (2011–2015) and will increase gross expenditure to R&D to 3.5% of GDP by 2015. Amongst this support, S$3.7 billion will be put aside for biomedical R&D. The powerful combination of intellectual and technological capabilities together with outstanding government commitment will provide a unique opportunity to drive the development in biomedical science and technology, which will continue to encourage the growth of research importance in the field of micro total analysis systems (uTAS).

Some of Singapore's premier institutions such as Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have been pro-actively involved in international collaboration and have interacted with international research of high distinction in the field of uTAS. During the last few years, Singapore research agencies and universities have organized various international conferences such as International Conference on Materials and Advanced Technologies (ICMAT) and Asia-Pacific Conference of Transducers and Micro-/Nano Technology (APCOT) and invited some world reputable expertise in the field to share their research experiences with the local community.

Through these international collaborations, Singaporean researchers have started long-term strategic partnerships with these experts to achieve research excellence and enhance innovation and productivity. In the near future, Singapore aims to attract more uTAS researchers for collaborations and to play a significant role in the uTAS and lab on a chip field with distinctive innovations.

Singapore’s biotechnology research did not really start until the late 1980s. Only in 1987, the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology was established with the mission to develop and foster a vibrant research culture for biological and biomedical sciences. Since then, Singapore has invested heavily in making the city-state a global centre of excellence in several biomedical fields. The symbol of this goal is Biopolis, the state-of-the-art campus (2 000 000 sq. ft) that clusters five public research institutes and two research centres specializing in genomics, nanotech and other cutting-edge disciplines together with facilities for big drug firms and biotech research. Furthermore, the whole curriculum from early education to university has been revamped to promote the study of life sciences. Today, the cosmopolitan city-state hosts more than 1000 PhD-qualified researchers in various fields. Besides, the city-state is not only one of the world’s leading drug producers but also a centre of biomedical innovation, moving upstream from merely making drugs into inventing and testing them. More than 30 leading biomedical sciences companies have established regional headquarters here. Being one of Asia’s fastest-growing stellar bio-clusters that present strategic partnership opportunities with other research institutes, corporate labs and public hospitals to develop biomedical sciences manufacturing and R&D activities, Singapore provides an excellent research environment and infrastructure to support lab on a chip research and attract hundreds and hundreds of the world’s top talent and leaders including Sir David Lane, Dim-Lee Kwong and Stephen Quake, to name just a few.

Much research has been developed and established in Singapore since the late 1980s. This special issue is timely in putting together various contributed articles focusing on lab on a chip research in Singapore. Containing only six articles, this special issue may be viewed as a small drop in the ocean, however, it reflects the potential of Singapore in lab on a chip research. Among these six articles, there is an important article on “Fast on-demand droplet fusion using transient cavitation bubbles” (DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00661K) contributed by Claus-Dieter Ohl from the Physics Department of Nanyang Technological University. In his paper entitled “Pinched flow coupled shear modulated inertial microfluidics for high throughput rare blood cell separation” (DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00633E), Chwee Teck Lim from the National University of Singapore focuses on the physics basis of shear flow for blood cell sorting through microflow rate control. Xiao-Di Su who is an expert in the research of surface plasmon from the Institute of Materials Research & Engineering also shares her latest results in an article on “Wide-field single metal nanoparticle spectroscopy for high throughput localized surface plasmon resonance sensing” (DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00644K). Kathy Luo who is an expert in cell biology research from the Department of Biological Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, contributes a paper entitled “Production of reactive oxygen species in endothelial cells under different pulsatile shear stresses and glucose concentrations” (DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00651C). Zhiqiang Gao from the Institute of Biology and Nanotechnology also shares his important research contributions to this special issue in an article entitled “A microfluidic-assisted microarray for ultrasensitive detection of miRNA under an optical microscope” (DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00638F).

As a guest editor to this special issue, it is my sincere hope that the six articles here will not only provide a good review of ongoing research within the authors’ specific field of research but also help inspire new directions and vision for the future lab on a chip research.

In the process of preparing this special issue I owe a debt of gratitude to the Editor and the publishing team from the RSC for their friendly suggestions and timely assistance. I am grateful to them for their outstanding professionalism and patience. I also thank our own team members, Danny and Yi-Chin. Danny is a genius artist who helped us design the cover of this special issue. Yi-Chin’s professional editing is also much appreciated. Last but not least, I am grateful to those who have taken time to contribute to this special issue.

Footnote

† This themed issue of Lab on a Chip is dedicated to the memory of Professor Zhao-Lun Fang, formerly of the Zhe Jiang University.

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