Since January 2020, Christopher Laing has been Associate Professor (Practice Track) and Vice Dean for Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Duke-NUS, with responsibility for technology commercialization, industry collaborations, and innovation education. He is also the Co-Chair of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medicine Innovation Institute, and Co-Chair of the Joint Centre for Technology and Development. In addition to creating strategic partnerships for the School in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship, he works directly with researchers and clinical innovators on developing and commercializing their projects, and in teaching early career researchers and professionals about innovation and commercialization.
In 2022, on a year-long hiatus from Duke-NUS, Chris served as the inaugural Chief Executive of ClavystBio. ClavystBio is building Singapore’s life sciences ecosystem through direct investments in promising startups, through engagement of universities in ecosystem development, and through collaboration on the development of Singapore’s life sciences innovation district at Science Park 1.
Prior to coming to Singapore, from 2017 to 2019, Chris was the inaugural Executive Director of Capital City Innovation, an organization that is coordinating the stakeholders of the innovation district emerging around Austin’s new health complex. Anchored by a collaboration among the University of Texas at Austin’s Dell Medical School, Ascension Health, and Central Health, and supported by the Downtown Austin Alliance, Opportunity Austin, and community stakeholders, Austin’s innovation district is committed to health innovation, inclusive place-making and healthy community. It has been recognized as an up-and-coming innovation district by the National League of Cities and the Association of University Research Parks.
Previously Chris was a member of the senior management team of Philadelphia’s University City Science Center, the country’s oldest and largest urban innovation hub, where he managed relationships between the innovation district and more than 30 academic institutions and had specific oversight of commercialization programs, startup investment, and business incubation/acceleration. His programs engaged more than 300 academic, company, and investment innovators and projects.
Chris became an Eisenhower Fellow in 2015, through which he had the opportunity to engage with government, academic, and business leaders in China’s emerging urban innovation centers. He is a member of the Philadelphia College of Physicians and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.
Prior to joining the Science Center, Chris worked for a number of life sciences start-up companies, ran a research program at the University of Pennsylvania, and was a practicing companion animal veterinarian in the United Kingdom.
He completed his veterinary training and his PhD (in endocrinology) at the University of Sydney, and his post-doctoral training (in molecular biology) at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine.