News Releases & Research Results AMED awards 3 joint projects with A*STAR on Human Ageing

• These are the results of the first grant call/call for projects since Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) and Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) joint call on Human Ageing.
• Three projects have been selected for funding, following a joint review.

Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) in collaboration with Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have identified three outstanding R&D projects in the field of “Biological and Molecular Determinants of Human Ageing” under the Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP). This is the first joint grant call since an MOC between AMED and A*STAR was signed in March 2016.

The SICORP program provides support for international joint research projects on the basis of equal partnership in countries, regions, and fields of cooperation that have been designated as particularly important by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) on the basis of inter-ministerial Coordination, in collaboration with funding agencies in the countries concerned.

Like Japan, Singapore is also facing an increased proportion of its population aged 65 years and over. To tackle this common issue, AMED and A*STAR decided to collaborate to promote research in this area.

AMED and A*STAR called for joint project proposals from researchers in Japan and Singapore in the Human Aging research area and began to accept proposals on October 18th, 2016. A total of 18 proposals was received as joint proposals by the close of applications on December 19th, 2016. The joint evaluation committee comprised both Singaporean and Japanese scientists. After the committee’s discussion, it identified three highly meritorious projects (See the attached list of the awarded projects).

Project	Country	Affiliation	Principal Investigator
Biological signatures of cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and cognitive ageing in the very old	Japan	Keio University School of Medicine	Assistant Professor, Yasumichi Arai
	Singapore	Duke-NUS Medical School	Professor, Woon-Puay Koh
Effect of aging of the innate immune system on intracellular system network	Japan	The University of Tokyo Hospital	Assistant professor, Katsuhito Fujiu
	Singapore	Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI)	Associate Professor, Yasuo Yanagi
Targeting age-associated white matter lesions	Japan	National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center	Director of Neurology, Masafumi Ihara
	Singapore	National University of Singapore	Professor, Peter Tsun-Hon Wong