A tale from the Lion City – A Stanford Ph.D. turned taxi
driver
SINGAPORE – Not too long ago, the Singapore
government targeted Biomedical Sciences as a potential avenue for
growth. Life Sciences became the talk of the town. Places in the
universities leading to a Life Sciences degree increased. There has
always been the danger that we could end up producing an
over-supply of Life Sciences graduates, and soon we will face the
conumdrum of having too many Life Sciences graduates competing for
a limited pool of Life Sciences-related jobs. Thus, Life Sciences
graduates are advised to upgrade themselves to the Ph.D. level.
Non-Ph.D. holders are qualified to wash test-tubes, according to
former A*STAR chairman, Mr Philip Yeo. However, not all graduates
can qualify to do a Ph.D. Most if not all graduate programs require
at least a second upper honors performance for an undergraduate
degree. And not all undergraduates will be able to muster that
level of performance. Only with a Ph.D. can a candidate work as a
Principal Investigator in an academic or research institution.
Given such a context, Dr Cai Mingjie’s experience has some sort
of an unexpected twist. Dr Cai underwent his Ph.D. training at
Stanford University, a top institution that has seen five of its
faculty members or former students receive the Nobel Prize in
Physiology and Medicine. Majority of Dr Cai’s work at Stanford
revolves around the study of yeast proteins, and a list of his
publications on that topic can be accessed at Scientific Commons, a
repository of scientific publications by researchers. Yeasts cells
are considered biological models for eukaryotic cells found in our
bodies, plants and animals. Thus, they are popular subjects of
study which allow scientists to better understand what goes on
inside a typical eukaryotic cell.
Armed with his Stanford Ph.D., all went on well for Dr Cai
initially. According to his account (now published in his blog), he worked as a Principal
Investigator at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB)
under A*STAR for 16 years. Back then, IMCB was still located at the
NUS campus and he described the old IMCB as a “once flourishing,
promising, and pleasant” place to work in. However, things changed
for the worse when there was a takeover of IMCB’s leadership by
some “big shot” foreign scientists. According to Dr Cai, the
previous style of “democratic and consensus-oriented management
system that had worked well for more than a decade in the past” was
ditched, and in place was a management style marked by
“domineering, manipulation, and incompetence”.
“Since the takeover of leadership by some western “big shots” a
few years ago, the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB)
of A*STAR, Singapore, a place I have worked for 16 years as a PI
(principal investigator), a place that was once flourishing,
promising, and pleasant to work in, has been in a mess. Bestowed
with the kind of power they had never seen before, these once
reputable scientists turned everything in the institute upside
down. The previous democratic and consensus-oriented management
system that had worked well for more than a decade in the past was
thrown out of window and replaced by one that was marked by
domineering, manipulation, and incompetence. What they lacked in
experience of management, adequate understanding of the institute,
and proper respect for fellow scientists as their colleagues, they
made up for in arrogance, prejudice, and naked muscle of political
power. ” – Dr Cai Minjie on his blog
What subsequently transpired was that a few Principal
Investigators were sent packing, and Dr Cai was one of them
unfortunately. His employment contract was terminated in May 2008,
and to further rub salt into his wounds, he wasn’t given any form
of compensation. He became jobless at a vulnerable age, but
nonetheless, he sent out resumes in the hope of landing a job. That
wasn’t to be and with the onset of the financial crisis, he finally
made the decision to become a taxi driver. He underwent the Express
Taxi Driver’s Vocational License Course, and finally obtained his
taxi driver’s license and embarked on his new career as a taxi
driver.
If Dr Cai’s account is true, the nature of the management at
IMCB which precipitated his departure may be a cause for concern. A
Research Institution should be the last place where one can find
autocracy and domination by a few select personnels. An ideal
environment should be a democratic one tolerant of diverse views,
just like how an academic institution should be open to diverse
academic views. Thus, Dr Cai’s account suggests a potential endemic
problem and raises the pertinent question of whether the correct
people have been selected to run the Research Institution. Doing
research is a different kettle of fish from the administration of a
Research Institution. A*STAR has always embarked on an aggressive
recruitment drive to lure big name scientists to set up shop in
Singapore; they are in Mr Philip Yeo’s words “whales brought in to
train the guppies”. A top researcher may not have the necessary
expertise to run a Research Institution. Thus, the assumption that
a top researcher can flawlessly run a Research Institution is
flawed. What is necessary are conditions that allow the ‘guppies’
within the Research Institution to flourish.
However, Dr Cai’s experience was like a fish getting suffocated
out of water, or more accurately in a suffocative environment
marked by domination, prejudice and arrogance in his own words. It
is good for a nation like ours to dream of becoming a Biomedical
hub, but first and foremost, we must create an environment to allow
our talents in the field to flourish. If such an environment
remains suffocative, such dreams will only remain as
hallucinations.