Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School moved into a state-of-the-art new school building this month, another milestone for the international health institute.
The new permanent Duke-NUS GMS campus, which began construction in September 2006, was completed in February this year and is now fully occupied by the school's faculty and staff, said Corinna Cox-Ng, director of communications and development at Duke-NUS GMS. At 25,000 square meters, the facility includes an 11-story administrative tower, a nine-story laboratory center and a vertical atrium at the heart of campus.
Cox-Ng said that after two years of operating in dispersed buildings, Duke-NUS GMS faculty, staff and students are enjoying working together.
"Everybody's pleased to be all under one roof. We're all physically on the same campus in a gleaming new building-a great location," she said.
Researchers and medical school educators from Singapore crossed the Pacific last May to present ongoing collaborative projects with the Duke School of Medicine. The event, titled "East Meets West: Singapore-Duke Research Collaborations," provided an opportunity for a team of faculty and administrators from Duke-NUS GMS-an institution co-founded in 2005 by Duke University and the National University of Singapore-to meet with Durham-based faculty to explore new research programs and projects born of recent partnership.
Presentations covered various research topics, such as emerging infectious disease epidemics, diagnostic algorithms that offer a genomic approach to pathogen finding and development of preventative vaccines to target diseases for which the body cannot produce antibodies. Other projects highlighted health services, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, clinical research worldwide and neuroscience.
Patrick Casey, senior vice dean for research at Duke-NUS GMS and James B. Duke professor of pharmacology and cancer biology, said global outreach by the Duke medical faculty is important for Duke to become an active participant in the globalization of biomedical sciences and health care.
"Leaders of Duke Medicine strongly believe in the value of exposing Duke researchers and students to a greater diversity of cultures and practices in the biomedical and health care arenas," Casey said.
This global perspective allows students and faculty, both in Durham and in Singapore, to have a special understanding of globalization trends and their opportunities and risks, he added.
"The Duke-NUS initiative is a full-fledged academic entity, with its own faculty-many of whom have dual appointments at Duke-and its own students, who will receive a joint degree from Duke and NUS at the end of their training," Casey said.
He added that this partnership allows researchers to reap new insights and professional benefits.
"Many special opportunities exist on the collaborative front, from access of major technologies in biomedical imaging and automated discovery screening to the ability to study unique patient populations in the context of clinical research," he said.
In addition to recently forged collaborations in research and the new insights that have resulted, Duke's core medical curriculum is being successfully transplanted in Singapore, said Wee Lai Ming, senior manager of communications at Duke-NUS GMS.
Duke-NUS GMS is the first medical school in Singapore founded on the U.S. model of students studying medicine after completing a bachelor's degree, according to the institution's Web site. The pre-existing medical school in Singapore followed the British model, in which students study medicine after specialized science coursework in high school.
Duke-NUS GMS Visiting Professor Doyle Graham, former dean of medical education at the School of Medicine, said the collaboration allows Duke medical educators to observe and learn from experimental teaching techniques practiced in Singapore.
"As a new school, we have been able to try new ways of helping students learn, and as such are serving as an education laboratory for Duke School of Medicine," Graham said.
One such example of the transfer of pedagogy is "The Body and Disease" course, a core component of Duke School of Medicine's first-year curriculum that integrates pathology, microbiology, pharmacology and immunology, Graham said.
The coursework is presented at Duke-NUS GMS through team-based learning, called TeamLEAD, which allows enhanced learning and retention, along with a great deal more enjoyment of learning by students and faculty alike, he added.
Graham said directors of "The Body and Disease" course and physicians at Duke have visited Singapore to observe these techniques and to bring the TeamLEAD process back to Duke.
"It is a pleasure to give back to our parent institution, and it is our hope that continued collaboration between the two medical schools will improve medical education at both institutions," Doyle said.
Casey echoed the sentiment.
"I think it is truly amazing just how well the two different cultures were able to get together to create this new academic medical entity," he said. "I feel that Duke-NUS has somehow managed to assimilate the best aspects of both cultures while leaving other aspects of each behind."
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