Wee Joo Chng, Professor in Medical Oncology and Vice-President of Biomedical Sciences Research at the National University of Singapore, shared on LinkedIn:
“This weekend I was invited to speak at a scientific conference organised by the Jincheng lab in Chengdu.
This is an impressive organisation housed in their science park / biopolis equivalent that was actually co-developed by Singapore before the government decided to shift their attention to Chongqing after COVID.
The focus of the Jincheng Lab is on health in areas of oncology and cardiovascular disease amongst others.
The person who invited me is Dr Yu Qiang, who used to be a PI at the Genomic Institute Singapore, and a long time collaborator! It was really so nice to see him again after all these years. We work together on non-canonical function of EZH2 in cancers which was one of my major area of work when I started as an independent PI.
One of the highlight is a Salon conducted by Prof Aaron Ciechanovar, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, for young enthusiastic secondary school children from Chengdu.
2 key take-home for me:
- Don’t simply accept what you are taught, keep questioning, keep being curious. He said one of the reasons why a country the size of Israel (population size similar to Singapore and in fact smaller than Chengdu, a city in China) can have 12 Nobel prize winner whereas China has 1 and Singapore none, is that it is in their culture to question, to explore, to fail, to learn. In contrast, the Asian culture stresses hierarchy, obedience and hard work. We produce a lot of ‘A’ students but it is not the ‘A’ students who make the major scientific discoveries! Certainly food for thought!
- Don’t follow well-mapped and lit paths. This will only lead you to known destinations! Take risks and wander the unmarked paths to unknown destination. This will potentially lead you to glorious new finds. Our society must celebrate these types of endeavour even if it ends with failure.
His sharing was passionate and inspiring. At the group photo taking, I introduced myself, and he remembered that I had moderated a dialogue with him last year in Singapore at the GYSS event. At his age, he is still very sharp, and travel the world to inspire young people.
Just the day before he was speaking at the NTU convocation. Legend!”
