Since its launch, Biopolis has attracted Dr. Alan Coleman (who cloned Dolly the sheep), Dr. Edison Liu, formerly the US's top cancer doc, and the entire genomics department from Kyoto University.
"So what?" you snort.
On March 9, 2005 Forbes.com announced, "Singapore Surpasses US as Top Tech Nation." In the rankings, produced by the World Economic Forum, the US fell to fifth. For the full story: LINK Score one for Singapore.
How did Singapore upend us? Simply by realizing this. To attract big brains, you have to make it easy for them to exercise their big, fat craniums. So Singapore PROVIDES the research funding and labs. (In the US, researchers must write grants, wait hat in hand for funding, and fight for labs.) Singapore only asks that the life and bioscience minds that take advantage of Singapore's generosity must help attract others.
At last count, Biopolis boasted 4,000 Ph.D's, over a quarter of whom are ex-pats from other countries. Score another for Singapore.
When are we going to start putting up numbers again?
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