NTU professor is head of International Medical Informatics Association, which promotes use of IT in biomedical research

By Chang Ai-lien

ONE of the experts responsible for setting up Singapore's mega-IT network for researchers has been chosen to lead a prestigious worldwide medical informatics body.

Professor Lun Kwok Chan, vice-dean of Nanyang Technological University's school of biological sciences, has been made president of the International Medical Informatics Association.

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The association promotes the use of information technology in health care and biomedical research.

And Prof Lun plans to use his expertise in informatics to give researchers here an edge in the life sciences, he said.

The association comprises about 20,000 members, including institutes such as Stanford University in the United States and the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

In the wake of the life-sciences revolution, he said the only way to make sense of the deluge of new information from medicine and genomics was to process it with high-powered computers.

'There are a lot of research opportunities where we can make use of bioinformatics to link genomic data to clinical studies,' he said.

For example, it can be used to see how a patient's individual cells react to different drug molecules during treatment.

During his three-year term as president, he plans to promote medical informatics in developing countries such as Africa, and to set up a virtual university to promote the field through distance learning.

Prof Lun is also part of the task force in charge of the mega-IT network project here called the biomedical grid.

This is a high-power, high-bandwidth computer storage and communication facility that will allow scientists to exchange and process huge amounts of biomedical information.

It will be up and running by 2003.

His interest in information technology dated back to the 1970s when computers were virtually unheard of, he said.

He bought his first computer in 1974 for the princely sum of $3,000.

The device, which looked more like a typewriter, had to be hooked onto a television to work, as it had no screen.

Now, his office boasts four computers, including a top-of-the-line flat-screen computer with wireless mouse and keyboard.

But he still has his first computer and other outdated ones that he has collected over the years.

'I'm just waiting for someone to set up an exhibit of past computers and I'll donate all these,' he said.

'And when I retire, I just want to enjoy the technology.'