Neal Copeland and Nancy Jenkins are a remarkable scientific double act, with some 700 shared publications in the decades since they met as postdocs at Harvard Medical School. They made their names working on mouse models of human disease at the Jackson Laboratory in Maine. (see CV)

Now, after 20 years at the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), where they've built up a colony of 20,000 mice, this husband-and-wife team is moving to Singapore's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB). What's pulling them away from such a comfortable niche, in their 50s?

For a start, Singapore is investing heavily in bioscience, notably in the construction of Biopolis, a seven-building biomedical research complex. At the IMCB, which moved to new facilities in Biopolis last year, Copeland and Jenkins will be setting up a new cancer lab.

“We will be on the ground floor of something new and exciting,” says Copeland. Decades of working together have created an easy-going harmony in which the two weave in and out of each other's sentences. Their closeness and many visits to Asia make the move less daunting.

“We've lived and travelled and worked together for more than 25 years,” says Copeland. “We share an office...”

“Quite a small one...” says Jenkins.

“Most people would probably be divorced by now! You have to be compatible...”

“That doesn't mean we never yell at each other...”

“But it's worked out well...”

“... for us,” Jenkins concludes.

They've made surprising moves before. They were the first molecular biologists to go to Jackson, where they fused molecular biology with mouse genetics. That led to a greater understanding of how cancers develop.

“The move there was risky,” says Jenkins. Copeland adds: “A lot of our friends thought we were throwing our careers away: 'Why go into mouse genetics?'.”

“They thought we'd disappear into the backwoods...”

“But it was the best thing we did. It shaped our careers.”

Moving to the NCI was the next best thing, they say, and they're hoping Singapore will be the third.

Jenkins advises young scientists not to underestimate their fields. Developments such as transgenic mice and the mouse genome, which seemed like science fiction in 1980, greatly increased her and her husband's success.

“Have fun too,” they add. “When it stops being fun, we'll probably retire.”