GONG XI FA CAI!! I came back from Singapore this morning and the trip was EXCELLENT! Actually, i wasn't there for vacation but our chair in bioethics and drug innovation invited us for a few seminars. Singapore is the new biotech hub and because of its tax incentives and loose regulation, it attracts lots of scientists working on sensitive issues such as therapeutic cloning or stem cell research. So, by day, i was a full time student at my school, visiting labs, pharmaceutical firms and hospitals for their cord blood banks and by night i was a party animal ^ ^. WORK: The lectures were all very interesting from Orphan drugs to Clinical trials in Asia through QALYs and DALYs and so on. The most memorable one was given during my visit to biopolis by Alan Colman on marketing Human Embryonic Stem Cells line. This guy was the one who worked on cloning Dolly the sheep. Our class tried to challenge him on ethical issues on his research but he always found nice ways to avoid them. Biopolis is an international research and development center for biomedical sciences. It was very high tech. I have visited the lab centre of Sanofi Aventis in a suburb of Paris. I thought it was already pretty good, but Biopolis really surpassed it.   
FUN: After school, i turned to be Sandrine the tourist. We were lucky enough because we arrived right on time for the Chinese New year festivities. There were lots of parades and streets were decorated of red color. Chinese temples were very crowded the first few days. There are not many historical sites but rather lots of malls. Actually, Singapore is known for where you can "eat and shop". The food is cheap and delicious! Especially those Chili Crabs.   Apart from eating, we visited a few attractions such as Night Safari, Singapore Zoo, Santosa Island and the botanical Garden with its beautiful orchids.   
  
This week was a lot of fun but i had to deal with lots of work too: readings for every sessions, with an exam on tuesday and a paper on friday. But it's worth all the souvenirs ^ ^. Anyways, so now i'm back to the rainy weather of Paris. Mini skirts and T-shirt will have to wait another few months before i'll wear them again. See ya and happy year of the pig! | 
