CDA Research Laboratory

The objectives of CRL are to:

• Engage other CDA divisions to develop laboratory research questions to provide a scientific basis for public health and national programmes;

• Develop national and international networks of clinical and research laboratories in infectious diseases of strategic importance in Singapore;

• Support research and development in epidemic and pandemic preparedness in the PREPARE Laboratory; and

• Host, maintain and ensure the effective operations of the National Infectious Disease Biorepository (NIDB).

The bacteriology section aims to improve the detection, surveillance, prevention and responses to clinically significant bacterial pathogens.

Activities include:

• Developing sustainable surveillance and diagnostic programmes for clinically significant pathogens (e.g. multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO) in healthcare and community settings); and

• Isolation and characterisation of MDRO to inform infection control, surveillance/epidemiology and clinical management.

The virology section investigates and advances research on viral diseases of public health importance to support policy decisions and improve healthcare. The section focuses on endemic viruses of significant disease burden, emerging viral infectious diseases and high consequence pathogens.

Activities include:

• Studies of contemporary viruses currently circulating in Singapore and the region to ensure the effectiveness of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics; and

• Characterise novel viruses and variants to understand pathogenicity, infectiousness and response to treatment.

The immunology section aims to thoroughly characterise and understand the cellular and humoral immune response to infection or vaccination and its variation in different population cohorts.

Activities include:

• Characterisation of immune response to vaccination or infection by serological/ immunological analysis of patient samples to determine correlations of protection or population-level immunity; and

• Explore variation in immune/disease response in different population cohorts to understand determinants of disease protection and pathogenesis.

The diagnostic evaluation section designs and/or validates new or existing diagnostic assays based on different technologies (e.g. molecular assays, rapid or point-of-care tests) for communicable diseases of public health interest

Activities include:

• Evaluation of rapid/ point-of-care testing (POCT) kits near patient for outbreak pathogens;

• Evaluation of new diagnostic technologies for diseases of public health interest (e.g. Dengue/ Mpox/ Covid-19); and

• Design of new assays and optimisation of existing protocols based on existing data for pathogen detection, including next generation metagenomics.

• Isolation, characterisation and sequencing of novel epidemic/pandemic viruses.

• Development of viral inactivation methods for viral isolates and clinical samples.

• Testing and validation of diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics in in-vitro and in-vivo model.

• Maintain competency and safe working procedures to conduct infectious disease research in a high containment setting.

Objectives of NIDB are to:

• Develop, maintain and serve as a custodian of a national repository and reference collection of microbes (bacteria, viruses and fungi) of public health importance and associated clinical specimens in Singapore. This repository will facilitate public health investigations and research as determined by the appropriate approval platform;

• Facilitate the study of microbes (genotypic and phenotypic characterisation including resistance and virulence) to inform public health and infection control efforts; and

• Support and encourage research in the development and validation of new diagnostics and therapeutics.

All collections will be subject to the applicable Singapore / international laws and ethical frameworks, such as the Human Biomedical Research Act (HBRA), Human Biomedical Research (Tissue Banking) (HBR (TB)), Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), Public Sector (Governance) Act (PSGA), Infectious Diseases Act (IDA), Biological Agents and Toxins Act (BATA), ethics approval by the relevant institutional review board(s) (IRBs), and inter-institutional agreements, as applicable.

The two main collections housed under NIDB are the public health collection and the clinical and research collection.

Public health collection: Samples collected under the Infectious Diseases Act will be overseen by the Public Health Oversight Committee.

Clinical/ research collection: Samples deposited (e.g. from clinical and research networks) for use by the general clinical and scientific community in Singapore and abroad will be overseen by the NIDB oversight committee.

The oversight committees provide oversight and advice on specimen management and utilisation for NIDB’s collections.