Big names in the medical and science community have joined forces since January to study the coronavirus outbreak and how to stop it from spreading further.

The Covid-19 research workgroup, chaired by National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) executive director Leo Yee Sin, commissioned three studies that were released yesterday. Its adviser is the Health Ministry's chief health scientist, Professor Tan Chorh Chuan.

The workgroup comprises 18 other members from the ministry, public healthcare institutions, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), and DSO National Laboratories, the largest defence research and development organisation here. They include:

• Associate Professor David Lye, deputy chair of the workgroup and director of NCID's Infectious Disease Research and Training Office;
• Associate Professor Tan Say Beng, covering executive director of the National Medical Research Council;
• Dr Benjamin Seet, group chief research officer of the National Healthcare Group;
• Associate Professor Raymond Lin, director of the National Public Health Laboratory;
• Professor Wang Linfa, director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme at Duke-NUS Medical School;
• Professor Laurent Renia, executive director of the Singapore Immunology Network at A*Star;
• Professor Lisa Ng, senior principal investigator at the Singapore Immunology Network;
• Associate Professor Alex Cook, vice-dean of research and domain leader for biostatistics and modelling at National University of Singapore's Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health;
• Dr Sebastian Maurer-Stroh, deputy executive director for research at A*Star's Bioinformatics Institute; and
• Associate Professor Tan Boon Huan, programme director for the DSO National Laboratories' biological defence programme.