About the magazine

Asian Scientist Magazine is an award-winning science and technology magazine that highlights research and development news stories from Asia to a global audience. Based in Singapore, the print magazine is maintained by a team of professional science and medical journalists, with active contributors from industry and academia. 

About the issue:

In this issue, we turn the spotlight on the generation-defining pandemic, COVID-19. There’s no bigger story in science right now than COVID-19 and although it has claimed over 600,000 lives worldwide, Asia appears to be spared from the worst of the outbreak so far (The Curious Case Of Asia’s COVID-19 Mortality Rates, p. 12).

As we work our way through the crisis and back to the new normal, scientists are doubling down on existing drugs approved for treatment of other illnesses in hopes of containing the pandemic (Dealing The Coronavirus A Knockout Punch, p. 18).

New tools such as the gene editing technology, CRISPR, are also used to develop diagnostics. Speaking of CRISPR, check out our feature story with Professor Yoshizumi Ishino, the scientist who discovered the gene editing technology back in 1987 (On The Cusp Of CRISPR, p. 34). Thanks to its versatility and ease of use, we anticipate promising developments in CRISPR technology in the near future (Peering Into The CRISPR Crystal Ball, p. 50).