The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore.
[5] The team from A*STAR helped set up and maintain the GISAID database storing and sharing COVID-19 virus data, including quality checking functions for genomic sequences sent in by various countries.
[8] By aligning its research with industry demand, the agency has seeded collaborations with multi-national companies such as Rolls-Royce, Applied Materials, Inc., Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
The lab's research would focus primarily on developing advanced semiconductor technologies for use in future generations of logic and memory chips, found in smartphones and laptops.
The collaboration with A*STAR marked the second time that Applied Materials has chosen to conduct product development and commercialisation activities outside its Santa Clara headquarters in the US.
A*STAR's ARTC would jointly conduct manpower training sessions with consulting firm McKinsey & Company to groom talent for jobs in advanced manufacturing technologies.
These sessions cover areas such as predictive maintenance, digitised performance management, procurement and supply chain.
[15] Singapore's first publicly funded drug candidate, ETC-159, which was discovered and developed through a collaboration with Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, advanced into Phase 1 clinical trials in July 2015.