| Nation's Future Bioscience is Singapore's second attempt to become a technological power. Determined to create an economic bulwark against foreign domination, the government first turned to computer component manufacturing in the 1980s. "When Singapore said they would reinvent themselves around the electronics business, people laughed. Then they became a dominant player. Now they are doing it with biotech," said Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster with the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto. Competition from low-wage nations, and the dot-com bust in 2000, depressed electronics prices and threw Singapore into recession. The government concluded that the nation's future depended on more advanced fields, such as bioscience. The nation's strategy has been the same: central control, liberal funding for favored industries and cooperation between businesses and laboratories. "They are systematic and relentless," Saffo said. Biopolis is designed to multiply the return on its investments by encouraging collaboration across genomics, nanotechnology and other fields. Sky bridges connect the upper floors of five of its seven buildings to the nation's institute for bioinformatics � the science that analyzes volumes of data generated by today's biological specialties. Several embryonic stem cell lines were originally created in Singapore, which remains a major supplier to U.S. scientists. The Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, established last year, has filed for patents on dozens of inventions, including ultra-sensitive diagnostic tools for cancer and severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS (news - web sites), and breathable, transparent membranes to cover burns and lacerations. "I sometimes characterize Singapore as a venture-capital company masquerading as a government," said Lee L. Huntsman, president emeritus of the University of Washington, who has established cooperative academic programs in Singapore. Axel Ullrich, director of the Department of Molecular Biology at Germany's Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, and one of the world's most influential biologists, recently agreed to head Singapore's Onco Genome Laboratory. He likened Biopolis to a small Silicon Valley for biology. "Singaporeans are the Californians of Asia," Ullrich said. Quality research, generous tax laws and a push to become a regional center for "healthcare tourism" has made Singapore a haven for pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. Novartis, the giant Swiss drug company, recently opened a major research and development facility in Biopolis. The companies added more than $6 billion to Singapore's economy last year, topping every manufacturing sector except electronics. Irving L. Weissman, who directs Stanford University's stem cell institute, compared Biopolis to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, where disdain for artificial borders between academic disciplines fostered the 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA. Singapore plans to extend the idea by building adjacent housing, shopping, schools and entertainment centers. "I wish � we had Biopolis at Stanford," Weissman said. Individual Initiative Singapore's tight control of its people, however, has also created its own problems. Risk, the active ingredient in the often-chaotic brilliance of U.S. science, is abhorred. "A well-trained army � they don't challenge," said Wei Chia Lin, a native of Taiwan who earned her doctorate at UC Davis and worked for years at U.S. biotech firms before joining the Genome Institute of Singapore. Importing Western scientists is seen as part of the solution. The other is to send students abroad. Each year, Singapore sends 100 of its top high school pupils to Western universities. Their education is paid through graduate school in exchange for six years of work back home. Yeo's research agency produced a booklet to attract aggressive and independent students. It is crafted to resemble a scrapbook of e-mails, diary entries and quotations from "Chairman Yeo" collected by two fictitious scholarship students, Samantha and Tian. "Encourage the kids to listen to their heartstrings � to spurn the compulsion to go with the tide," Sam tells Tian. But outsiders wonder how fast individual initiative can take root in a culture of self-control. "I do see a very conservative stance from scientists as a result of this top-down approach," said Paul Yager, a University of Washington bioengineering professor and a leader of the joint Singaporean program with his university. "I don't see it as well-suited to a long-term, healthy scientific environment." Papan and Kraut regard the autocratic approach as strict but fair, despite its occasional surprises. Like many Westerners here, they're defensive about Singapore's image problem in the West. "It's always about caning, and that you cannot spit gum. I don't care," Papan said, waving his arms in exasperation. "I don't have to spit gum." Papan recalled a recent incident when he stretched out on a bench beside a bubbling fountain in Biopolis, as he might have done at Caltech on a sunny day. A guard immediately approached. "I was politely asked to stand up or sit up because it was an unsightly view," Papan said. At first, he was bewildered by the request. But then, amid the grandeur and newfound scientific privileges of Biopolis, he slowly sat up. |