A study, entitled Economic Burden of Migraine in Singapore conducted by Duke-NUS Medical School and pharmaceutical company Novartis, has found that migraine sufferers caused some $1.04 billion in economic losses in 2018, where productivity loss made up 80 per cent of the cost, and remaining 20 per cent attributed to healthcare cost. Dr Eric Finkelstein, Professor of Health Services and Systems Research at Duke-NUS Medical School and co-author of the study said that migraines had long-term detrimental effects on people's work, such as affecting their career progression, as well as their lives at home.

Dr Carol Soon, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies at NUS and Ms Nadzirah Samsudin, Research Assistant from the same Institute commented that in the fight against climate change, every individual action counts. Sharing is a collective movement with positive ripple effects on the community and the environment that we can all contribute to.

A team of three researchers from NUS Faculty of Science, Assoc Prof Ang Wee Han and Dr Maria Babak, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, both from the Dept of Chemistry and Assoc Prof Giorgia Pastorin from the Dept of Pharmacy, together with a counterpart from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, are developing an anti-cancer drug, which unlike its peers, can “home in” on the energy production centres of cancer cells and destroy them – leaving healthy cells and tissues untouched in the process.  This anti-cancer drug which has better treatment outcomes serves as an alternative to cisplatin, a platinum-based drug used since 1965 and known to have toxic side effects.

Dr Fanar Haddad, Senior Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute at NUS opined that the drone attacks in Saudi Arabia stemmed from blurred lines of contestation typical in the region, raising the risk of a miscalculation flaring into a major conflict.

Prof Zheng Yongnian from the East Asian Institute at NUS discussed the rise of China in modern history since 1949, such as how China explored the system it wanted to use to govern, as well as how its system evolved in the past 70 years.

The Ministry of Education has shared data indicating that two-thirds of the undergraduates of medicine and dentistry at Singapore’s local universities came from households earning more than $9,000 a month while the rest of their peers were from families earning below that level. The ministry had announced in Aug 2019 that bursaries for medicine and dentistry courses would be significantly increased from 2020 to ensure that they remain open to students from all backgrounds.

Adj Prof Phua Kok Khoo from the Dept of Physics at NUS Faculty of Science discussed the difference between Singapore and Hong Kong as well as the ways for the two countries to collaborate.

The Housing Board would be trying out a surveillance system that automatically detects high-risk situations at construction sites and sends alerts to the person in charge so as to improve worker safety and reduce the need for manual labour. There are two scenarios being tested by the system which uses video analytics and artificial intelligence. The project was in collaboration with the NUS School of Design and Environment with support from AI Singapore.

A recent study led by Asst Prof Feng Lei from the Dept of Psychological Medicine at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine revealed that regular tea drinkers have better organised brain regions - this is associated with healthy cognitive function - compared to non-tea drinkers. The research team recruited 36 adults aged 60 and above, and gathered data about their health, lifestyle and psychological well-being.

Dr Kelvin Seah Kah Cheng, Lecturer from the Dept of Economics at NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences commented that the growth of the tuition industry is fuelled primarily by two factors, namely, increasing average real incomes of households and the desire for parents to see their children keep up with the competition.