Singapore biotech drive loses star UK scientists

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Top scientists David and Birgitte Lane are set to leave Singapore to take up new positions at Scotland's University of Dundee, which could complicate the city-state's multi-billion dollar biotechnology ambitions.

Cancer expert Lane and his wife Birgitte, a skin cell expert, would return to Scotland in January to lead the new Division of Molecular Medicine at Dundee's College of Life Sciences, a statement on the university's Web site said.

The Singapore government, which has attracted some of the world's top researchers to its shores in a bid to build up its biomedical industry, downplayed the move.

"Sir David Lane is not leaving the Agency for Science, Technology and Research and Singapore," Andre Wan, deputy executive director of the Biomedical Research Council at Singapore's A*STAR said on Thursday in a statement.

It added that Lane, who came to the city-state in 2004, will be "physically in Singapore for at least 3 months a year".

The Lanes could not be immediately contacted for comment.

The husband-and-wife team were among top scientists who relocated to Singapore amid a multi-billion dollar drive by the city-state to build a biotechnology industry from scratch.

David Lane chairs Singapore's Biomedical Research Council, which oversees the city-state's biomedical research and development (R&D) activities. He is also executive director of Singapore's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, which hosts more than 400 scientists.

Other leading scientists who have relocated to Singapore include Alan Colman -- the British scientist whose team cloned Dolly the sheep -- and U.S. cancer specialist Edison Liu.