Having received plaudits for its response to COVID-19, Singapore has nonetheless seen a resurgence in cases during recent days. Was our earlier success largely due to public policy, or could there be other biological factors involved, and what does this mean for us moving forward? — Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has swept through the globe, infecting ~164 million people, and causing ~3.4 million deaths at the time of writing¹. As countries continue to grapple with the virus, these figures are unlikely to have peaked just yet. Barring the crisis in our foreign worker dormitories, my…

The convergence of whole genome sequencing, gene editing as well as AI and machine learning technologies has led to an explosion in our understanding with regards to our genes and illnesses. However, have we currently overlooked an entire class of diseases? — In recent years, novel ‘multi-omics’-based approaches have shed new light on the complexities of our own biology. Approaches such as genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics have provided tons of data previously unavailable to us, revealing insights into our genome and the building blocks that make each individual. Critically, the simultaneous development…