Singapore biotech drive loses star Dolly-creator scientist

By Daryl Loo

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - British scientist Alan Colman, who helped clone Dolly the sheep, is leaving Singapore, dealing another blow to the city-state's biotech ambitions.

Stem cell scientist Colman, who had been lured to the city-state with grants and research facilities, now heads a Singapore consortium in stem cell research. He will leave next May for the Stem Cell Centre at King's College London, the city-state's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) said in a statement.

The latest move follows news in September that two other top British scientists, David and Birgitte Lane, will also leave next year, giving weight to the World Bank's criticism that Singapore's biotech drive was overly reliant on "footloose" scientists who could leave at short notice.

Over the last five years, Singapore has ploughed more than S$3 billion (1 billion pounds) into its biomedical sector, spending generously on start-ups, new labs and on luring top scientists such as Colman and the Lanes from the U.S. and Europe.

Colman, who came to Singapore in 2002, told Reuters in an separate email that he will be dividing his time between Singapore and London, spending about a quarter of his time in Singapore. "There will be scientific benefits to Singapore, I believe, from my move to London," he told Reuters on Tuesday.

But that argument cut no ice with the most outspoken critic of Singapore's biomedical policy: Lee Wei Ling, whose father Lee Kuan Yew founded modern Singapore and whose brother Lee Hsien Loong now runs the country as prime minister.

"How can you run research in Singapore on one-third or one-quarter of your time? You must be extremely efficient or not involved enough and so are not worth the money," Lee told Reuters.

"NO SIGNIFICANT RESULTS"