NEST-BIO VENTURE LAB: The Catalyst of ASEAN-JAPAN R&D Ecosystem

As a Knowledge-based manufacturing company that has a vision to “Advancing Science and Technology for Global Happiness”, Leave a Nest Group has established three research institutes and laboratories as platforms to bridge researchers, corporates and startups in solving issues around the world. Last year, Leave a Nest launched a new platform called Nest-Bio Venture Lab (NBVL) located at Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT), University of Technology Malaysia (UTM) campus, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Dr. Yuko Ueno, the new appointed manager of NBVL shared her vision on how NBVL can become a catalyst to ASEAN-JAPAN R&D ecosystem.

Exchanging Knowledge and Expertise

All the labs under LVNS including NBVL are unique, because they connected the ecosystem of R&D in ASEAN and Japan. Through these labs, Malaysian researchers or startups could access bigger Japan’s R&D ecosystem and get support from Japanese big companies. Not only that, they could build core tech in the NBVL and then Leave a Nest could support them to go to the Japan market. Vice Versa, researchers and startups could also expand their research and business to ASEAN through the lab’s network that we have.

Platform To Nurture and Hire ASEAN Talents

To make science and tech to go into daily life, education is very important. Because you have to change people’s natural way of thinking. Through NBVL, talents from Malaysia and ASEAN can be nurtured through involvement in collaborative research projects with global researchers and companies. By doing this, they could learn the way of thinking and knowledge from different countries to improve their skills. And besides the researchers, NBVL also conducts education projects. Corporations can also use this platform to identify the potential talents that might be suitable to expand their business globally.

Tele-Research Enablers

Previous days, It’s always necessary for researchers to work in a lab to conduct research. But when Covid-19 struck the world, a lot of labs were closed and a lot of research were postponed. For example, Metagen had a plan to conduct their research in Malaysia but unfortunately, they are not unable to conduct the research by themselves due to Covid-19 and travel restrictions. Since they are partnering with NBVL, they have access to MJIIT’s expertise and work with the local talents to proceed with their research without them coming to the country or bringing the sample to their home countries. This will also affect the issues of sample transportation in and out of the country.

Let’s Be Part of Nest-Bio Venture Lab

Last but not least, Dr. Yuko Ueno said, “Usual bio-lab is just a wet lab.Butoursaredifferent.Wewant to change our daily life by Science and Technology. Which means just doing research is not enough. We need to make the research to a industry, hence a Business”.. We believe NBVL will be a great catalyst in bridging R&D Ecosystem between ASEAN and Japan. Please contact us for further information.

Writer: Abdul Hakim Sahidi

Editor:Dr. Kihoko Tokue