In Singapore, Asia’s leading agribusiness group Wilmar International Limited and the National University of Singapore established a S$110 million joint research laboratory based at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine to create healthier food products as well as to devise green production technologies for industrial enzymes and biochemicals.
NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye said, “This win-win partnership combines NUS’ strong expertise in biomedical sciences and translational medicine with Wilmar’s rich industry experience and global networks to address two pressing real-world challenges – lifestyle-related diseases and sustainable production of industrial chemicals.”
Researchers at the WIL@NUS Corporate Laboratory will study how different combinations of food can alter absorption and metabolism in Asians. And, for green chemicals, scientists will capitalize on recent advances in the field of synthetic biology to engineer microbes and enzymes – to function as ‘bio-factories’ – to produce biochemicals from natural sources in a more sustainable and cost-effective way.