Prof Edward W. Holmes

 

Bringing Research from Bench to Bedside

 

US-born Prof Edward Holmes’ stellar reputation and wide network contributed to Singapore’s rapid growth in its capabilities in translational clinical research, encouraging companies from abroad to forge partnerships with the local scientific community.

 

Singapore launched its biomedical sciences initiative at the turn of the 21st century and by 2006, its next push was to build up its competency in translational and clinical research (TCR). Such research develops discoveries made in the laboratory into new ways of treating patients and health products; basically, developing lab innovations to the point where the medical sector or healthcare agencies find it attractive to further develop these innovations.

Professor Edward Holmes was called on to be one of the architects of Singapore’s TCR infrastructure. Currently, he is emeritus vice-chancellor and dean of the medical school at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), has spent his entire career which spans more than 40 years, building up the United States’ TCR capabilities. He has held senior administrative positions at Duke University, Stanford University, and University of Pennsylvania.

Prof Holmes was no stranger to Singapore. He was appointed to the International Advisory Panel for the NUS’ Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering in 2003. During one of his trips here in 2006, he met then-Chairman of A*STAR Philip Yeo who, as Prof Holmes recalled, asked, “Why don’t you work in Singapore?” In response, Prof Holmes half-jokingly said, “Why don’t you make me an official offer?”

Within three days, Prof Holmes received a job offer to be the executive chairman of the National Medical Research Council (NMRC), and the executive deputy chairman of the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC). The NMRC comes under the Ministry of Health (MOH) and oversees the development and advancement of medical research in Singapore. The BMRC was set up in 2000 to support, oversee and coordinate public sector biomedical R&D activities. His wife, Judith Swain, one of the world’s leading molecular cardiologists, was also offered a position as executive director of the Singapore Institute of Clinical Sciences at A*STAR. She held this position until 2014 when she became a senior fellow at A*STAR.

Within three months of Prof Holmes accepting the offer, he came to Singapore. Shortly after arriving, he and the deputy chairman of A*STAR, Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, sat down in Prof Holmes’ unfurnished apartment and charted the first draft of Singapore’s roadmap for translational research. “That was our first draft,” Prof Holmes said. Over the next few months, he would work with colleagues from the biomedical field to firm up the grant structures that would enable TCR for the next five years.

Prof Holmes surmised that the missing puzzle piece in Singapore’s biomedical industry at that time was a shortage of clinician-scientists—individuals who conduct biomedical research and have a thorough understanding of how these discoveries could improve human health. “They are the magic ingredient in biomedical research,” said Prof Holmes. Individuals who are both physicians and scientists take a lengthy process of more than 15 years to complete their medical and post-graduate degrees. As a result, few are willing to pursue this career track.

As a physician-scientist himself, Prof Holmes understood what scientists in the field needed. Clinician-scientists rely on grants as their main source of salaries and research support, but there were few grant mechanisms for them in Singapore, he said. To create a pool of talent, Prof Holmes helped devise the STaR Investigator Award to draw clinician-scientists from abroad and locally to conduct their research in Singapore.

Prof Holmes and Prof Tan also zoomed in on another problem: clinician-scientists tied up with their day-to-day duties of caring for patients do not have enough time to pursue research. The duo set up the Clinician Scientist Award to draw younger Singaporean clinician-scientists into the laboratories. Under this grant, doctors who have an established track record as researchers are given full funding for up to five years if they spend 70% or more of their time on research. Those who devote less time would have the funding quantum adjusted accordingly. As of mid-2015, more than 95 clinician-scientists have received awards from the NMRC, said the Ministry of Health. Said Prof Holmes, “NMRC has been successful in recruiting people and I am proud of the young scientists who have stepped up.”

Other than human capital, Prof Holmes and his colleagues saw that Singapore needed an environment that supported TCR. Most importantly, the MOH had to go beyond its role of managing the public healthcare system to encouraging medical research. Hospitals, medical schools and scientific institutes in A*STAR used to work independently but Prof Holmes encouraged the different bodies and agencies to support the idea of a new TCR infrastructure, build laboratories and collaborate in the research and delivery of drugs to patients.

Prof Holmes also worked closely with the Economic Development Board to encourage pharmaceutical companies to forge partnerships with Singapore’s scientific community. “We would meet with the chief scientific officer or CEO, describing to them the range of basic TCR available in the ‘ecosystem’ that’s here,” he said. “One of Singapore’s major advantages is the Asian phenotype. The three major ethnic groups here represent over 25% of the world’s gene pool,” he added. Although companies could set up shop in China or India, translational research had not caught on in those countries yet so Singapore proved to be a major attraction to the companies. With Prof Holmes’ help, the world’s largest biotech company, Roche, established a multi-million dollar medical research hub in Singapore in 2010 while in the same year the GSK Academic Centre of Excellence set up its first programme to enhance TCR by facilitating multi-disciplinary medical projects among A*STAR researchers, the universities and hospitals.

Prof Holmes was conferred the Honorary Citizen Award in 2011. He left his position at the NMRC in 2012 and held his position at the BMRC till 2014. Now a senior fellow at A*STAR, where he advises top administrators on research and acts as a bridge to others in the biomedical sciences community, Prof Holmes shuttles between San Diego and Singapore at least 10 times a year. He is also senior adviser to the National Research Foundation, an agency under the Prime Minister’s Office that coordinates all R&D. As Singapore is already at the stage of its biomedical initiative where collaboration with the private sector is expected to bear fruit, Prof Holmes believes that Singapore is on track to achieve its ambitions. “Before I retire, I hope we can see that there’s a made-in-Singapore drug in the clinic,” he said.

References

Joyce Hooi, “Roche to set up 100m Swiss Franc Research Hub Here,” The Business Times, January 29, 2010, https://www.healthxchange.com.sg/News/Pages/Roche-to-setup-100m-Swiss-franc-research-hub-here.aspx

Lim Chuan Poh, "GlaxoSmithKline Academic Centre of Excellence Awards 2010" (Speech at Economic Development Board, Singapore, October 7, 2010), http://www.a-star.edu.sg/Media/News/Speeches/ID/1357/GlaxoSmithKline-Academic-Centre-of-Excellence-Awards-2010.aspx

Ministry of Manpower,. 2011. Singapore Confers Prestigious Honorary Citizen Award on Professor Edward Holmes, http://www.mom.gov.sg/newsroom/press-releases/2011/singapore-confers-prestigious-honorary-citizen-award-on-professor-edward-holmes

Interview with Prof Edward Holmes over Skype in April and May 2015.

 

 

Prof Edward W. Holmes
United States of America, b.1941