Chapter 2: Welcome to Singapore, Singapore

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Good Evening, Fine Sirs and Madams! 

I would like to welcome each and every one of you to the next installment of "In The World". As some of you may have guessed by the title (please don't feel bad if you didn't!), I have decided that since the Near East just doesn't serve as a permanent home, I need to experience the Far East...

Singapore is a city-state located 1 degree north of the Equator, making it highly tropical and subject to monsoon rains. Singapore is surrounded by water on four sides making it an? ... (Yes kids, an ISLAND country :) 

Brief History: Singapore has been inhabited since the 2nd century CE. During the exploratory age, it became a sovereignty of Great Britain, who lost it to Japanese occupation during World War II. Singapore then declared independence in 1963 and united with other British territories to form Malaysia. It separated from the rest of Malaysia two years later and has since risen far, to become an international financial powerhouse with massive wealth increase, massive rain forest losses, and massive space problems.

It is this country that I have chosen as my next location to work in.  Specifically, I am employed as a Research Staff at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) for the next 6 months. My supervisor is Asst. Prof. Terry Steele, who has a laboratory group in the School of Material Science and Engineering.

An extensive survey after Saudi Arabia showed me that people are actually interested in the research I do, so I will increase writing activity in that sector:

My project at NTU is in the area of biotechnology and aims to develop a therapy against a common complication in immunocompromised (people with bad immune systems) patients, particularly HIV/AIDS patients. 

I will start slowly: In this bad bad world there exists a group of Viruses called Herpes. The most important characteristic of a Herpes Virus is that once you have it you cannot get rid of it, as it will lie dormant in long-living cells such as neurons. There are 8 types of Herpes, and the common adult has between 3 and 4 types lying dormant in their body, kept under control by their functioning immune system. Cytomegalovirus is the name of a Herpes Type V virus and is present in 50% of all European Adults. In most adults this virus will never be noticed at all. However, the medical world is concerned with the that subset of people that experience an activation of this virus. This subset is mainly comprised of immunocompromised people. In my project we are concerned about HIV (= human immunodeficiency virus) patients whose immune system is being decimated slowly by HIV. In these patients, CMV is likely to activate and become a widespread secondary health problem. Activated CMV will enter healthy cells and cause them to grow to extremely large sizes which then burst... Just like everyone has a preference for different types of food, CMV also has a preference to which healthy cells it attacks. In this case, it is the cells of the eye, which first leads to a complication called CMV Retinitis and then to blindness. 

Treatment of CMV is done with a drug called Ganciclovir, which is a nucleoside (building block of Virus DNA) analogue and works by being mistaken by the virus during reproduction as the real nucleoside causing reproduction inhibition. Sadly, Ganciclovir has a number of side effects, including liver damage, headaches, hallucinations, and neuronal damage, making it a very delicate drug to use. An idea to reduce the risk of Ganciclovir for the treatment of CMV Retinitis is to only apply the drug locally, instead of injecting it intravenously. 

My project at NTU is aimed directly at this dilemma: we are trying to develop a thin biodegradable film that incorporates the drug Ganciclovir can be placed directly on the eye and release the drug at a constant rate over a long time period.

I start with laboratory work next week, so wish me luck.

On the other hand, I have been in Singapore for a week now and have managed to settle myself into an Ueber-expensive concrete hole that these people call apartments. Although I have done more paperwork than sight seeing this week, the city is kept very tidy, and contains a number of impressive buildings. The public transportation network is fantastic and very modern. The food is cheap and very Asian, although all other goods are over-priced.

My favorite excursion has been a trip to the Singapore Orchid Gardens, where they manage to display an impressive 3000 different types of Orchids.

That's it for now. More Updates soon. Thanks for reading :)