The Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) is a unique interdisciplinary Research Centre of Excellence (RCE), funded by National Research Foundation, Singapore Ministry of Education, Nanyang Technological University and National University of Singapore. Hosted by the NTU in partnership with NUS, SCELSE is linking new insights from the life sciences with expertise from the emerging technologies in engineering and natural sciences to understand, harness and control microbial biofilm communities. The union of these fields has established a new discipline of Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (ELSE).