William Chia, director, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, Singapore

When developmental biologist William Chia returns to Singapore this May, he is hopeful that his previous experience in the city-state will help him to distance a resurrected institute from its fractious past.

Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) arose from the wreckage of the Institute of Molecular Agrobiology (IMA) in August 2002. Once located on the campus of the National University of Singapore, the IMA was forced to close in September 2001 amid criticism that the country — which imports most of its food — did not need agricultural research and should instead concentrate on biomedicine. Advocates of the IMA in the research community argued that the fundamental research covered more than just applied agricultural research, and many outside observers saw the episode as a clash of egos among some of Singapore's scientific élite. The IMA's 24 principal investigators were caught in the middle. In the end, half of them merged with the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology and the other half came together to form the TLL (see CV).

Chia hopes that his combination of experience with Singapore's culture and his international perspective, gained from working in London, will allow him to help the TLL to start anew. His goal is to shape a research community that is open and keen to collaborate with researchers within Singapore and elsewhere. “I wanted to do something worthwhile for like-minded scientists,” says Chia.

Chia says that the TLL has broad-ranging fields of research: “We will focus on cell biology, development and the interface between the two.” To do this, TLL researchers will use “model systems across the board”, Chia says. He is clear about how to avoid the ambiguity that plagued the IMA. “We will have plant research, but it is certainly not an agrobiotechnology institute,” he explains.

The TLL is still recruiting, as Chia plans to expand it from the current 16 groups and 148 researchers up to 25 groups and about 200 researchers. With all this ahead of him, Chia still hopes to continue his research into the development of the nervous system. “It's a tremendous opportunity,” he says. “All the resources are here.”