Singapore it on: Champagne and money flowed at the opening last week of Biopolis (inset). Credit: Johns Hopkins Singapore (top); JTC Corporation (bottom)

The first phase of Biopolis, Singapore's US $288 million complex of research laboratories, opened on 29 October to the strains of a jazz quintet led by Edison Liu, executive director of the Genome Institute of Singapore. Designed to house more than 2,000 researchers in 2 million square feet, Biopolis is a concrete and glass demonstration of the Singapore government's determination to establish the city-state as the premier biosciences center in Asia.

“Biopolis was conceived as the cornerstone of a much broader vision to build up the biomedical sciences industry in Singapore,” Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan said at the opening. A second phase with as many as 5,000 scientists is planned, but the timing has not yet been announced. Biopolis will eventually become a feature in a 500-acre arts and sciences 'theme park', complete with shops and homes.

The biomedical sciences sector contributed $5.6 billion in manufacturing output and $3.7 billion in value added to the economy in 2002, barely three years into the program. Although overshadowed by hundreds of billions of dollars in investments, the numbers are reminiscent of the lead-up to Singapore's becoming a microchip powerhouse in the 1990s.

Biopolis' network of spacious institutes and laboratories was designed to be a magnet for biomedical and allied scientific talent from around the world. A key ingredient in its attraction is the juxtaposition of dozens of industry, government and academic research facilities.

Its approach may well be successful. Following the opening, the Singapore government announced it would create a Center for Molecular Medicine to focus on translational research. On 28 October, Johns Hopkins University also announced a new division of its School of Medicine that would be entirely located at Biopolis, its first location outside Baltimore. “Space constraints alone mean that we can't grow at our Baltimore campus,” says Edward D. Miller, CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine. The new division will be fully engaged in research, and is expected to draw promising students and postdocs from around the world. Miller says the division will focus on diagnostic and therapeutic immunology.

Hopkins has had a research program in Singapore for the past five years, and this agreement extends it for at least five more. The new division will recruit up to 12 full-time faculty members, Miller says.

Funding for the division comes from a grant from Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry. Details have not been revealed, pending final approval, but the grant is expected to be around $28.8 million. Officials have been tight-lipped about other sources of funding, but a significant proportion is expected to come from the US National Institutes of Health.

The Genome Institute of Singapore and the Bioinformatics Institute moved into Biopolis in September, and Johns Hopkins is expected to join them in early 2004.