Immunologist And Bioinformatics Experts Join A*STAR

Two eminent scientists have recently joined Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) to provide scientific leadership and to widen the global linkages for the Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) and the Bioinformatics Institute (BII).

Professor Paola Ricciardi-Castagnoli was appointed Scientific Director of the Singapore Immunology Network's (SIgN) in September 2007. A highly-respected scientist in immunology research, Dr Ricciardi-Castagnoli is most well-known for her research on dendritic cells of the immune system.

Frank Eisenhaber is a well-known scientist in the international scientific community for his bioinformatics research focusing on the discovery of new biomolecular mechanisms and the functional characterisation of genes and pathways. He joined A*STAR as the Director of the Bioinformatics Institute (BII) in August 2007.

SIgN was established by A*STAR in 2006 to build up immunology research in Singapore. As Scientific Director of SIgN, Prof Ricciardi-Castagnoli will be working closely with Prof Philippe Kourilsky, Chairman of SIgN, and Dr Lam Kong Peng, Executive Director of SIgN, in designing a scientific strategy to establish immunology as a core capability in Singapore and to create a strong platform in basic human immunology research for better translation of what is already known about immunity in animal models into medical applications.

"Singapore's biomedical research endeavour is relatively recent compared with some of the European countries," observed Prof Ricciardi-Castagnoli who has worked for more than three decades in research institutions in Italy, France and Germany. "However, in the short span of time, Singapore has achieved a lot.

Frank Eisenhaber, Director at Bioinformatics Institute, was previously head of the bioinformatics research group at the Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna since 1999.

Together with his research team at IMP, Dr Eisenhaber has made a number of significant discoveries over the past eight years, including the discovery of the very first set of enzymes involved in the transformation of a "lightly packed" (euchromatic) complex of DNA and protein to a "tightly packed" (heterochromatic) form, which is crucial to the understanding of gene activity and replication.

Most notably, Dr Eisenhaber's team developed a series of sequence-based prediction tools and recognised the molecular functions of a variety of important genes and proteins in physiological processes.

The accuracy of their bioinformatics tools for predicting protein post-translation modifications is still unmatched in the world today.