News & Stories

2025年10月16日至19日，香港科大「創科行」（第4站）＠HICOOL 2025全球創業家高峰會系列活動成功舉辦！HICOOL全球創業家高峰會被譽為「全球創新創業風向標」，本屆高峰會吸引100餘個國家和地區的頂尖創新力量齊聚。作為「創科行」活動的核心連結場景，本屆高峰會活動為香港科大搭建了「成果展示+思想碰撞」的雙重平台，成為本次創科行的重頭戲。

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) today launched SmartPath, a comprehensive artificial intelligence (AI) system designed to transform the entire pathology workflow for cancer care. The system was developed by an HKUST research team led by Prof. CHEN Hao, Director of Collaboration Center for Medical and Engineering Innovation, and Assistant Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. SmartPath provides integrated support for clinical diagnosis, subtyping, biomarker quantification, treatment response assessment, and prognostic follow-up across a wide spectrum of cancers, aiming to accelerate turnaround times and enhance the personalization of treatment plans.

A landmark study conducted by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has demonstrated that a genetic variant, TREM2 H157Y, significantly increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in individuals of ethnic Chinese descent. The research reveals that this variant confers a risk level comparable to that of the strongest known genetic risk factor for AD, APOE-ε4, and is associated with more rapid clinical progression and more severe neurodegeneration.This is the first in the field to conduct an in-depth family-based clinical case study on a Chinese-enriched genetic risk factor for AD, the TREM2 H157Y variant. The findings, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, have profound implications for disease monitoring and patient management.

Membrane proteins are crucial for numerous biological processes and serve as important drug targets. For decades, scientists have relied on detergents to extract membrane proteins from cell membranes for structural studies. While detergent-based approaches have significantly advanced our understanding of membrane protein structures, they present certain limitations, such as resource-intensive detergent screening and the absence of native membrane lipids, which can hinder investigations into lipid-mediated regulation. To address these challenges, a research team led by Prof. DANG Shangyu from the Division of Life Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed a novel vesicle-based method that preserves the native lipid environment of membrane proteins, which can advance structural and functional studies.

A research team from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), led by Professors Gan Jianping (Department of Ocean Science) and Professor Yang Can (Department of Mathematics), has developed a novel AI-powered tool named STIMP for diagnosing coastal ocean productivity and ecosystem health. STIMP introduces a novel paradigm that imputes missing data and then predicts Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentrations across large spatiotemporal scales. In tests across four representative global coastal regions, STIMP significantly outperformed existing geoscience tools, reducing the mean absolute error (MAE) for imputation by up to 81.39% and for prediction by 58.99%. Accurate Chl-a prediction aids in early detection of harmful algal blooms, ecosystem protection, and provides data-driven insights for evidence-based policy-making.

A research team led by Prof. PAN Ding, Associate Professor from the Departments of Physics and Chemistry, and Dr. LI Shuo-Hui, Research Assistant Professor from the Department of Physics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), has developed a novel direct sampling method based on deep generative models. This method enables efficient sampling of the Boltzmann distribution across a continuous temperature range. The findings have been published in Physical Review Letters*.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) today received plaques from YIN Hejun, Minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) for its three State Key Laboratories (SKLs) at the Government Headquarters of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). HKUST sincerely thanks MOST, and the Hong Kong Innovation, Technology, and Industry Bureau (ITIB) for their continued trust and recognition of the University’s research efforts. In addition to the two renamed SKLs following restructuring – the “State Key Laboratory of Nervous System Disorders (SKLNSD)” and the “State Key Laboratory of Displays and Opto-Electronics (SKLDOE)” – HKUST will also collaborate with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) to establish a new “State Key Laboratory of Climate Resilience for Coastal Cities (SKLCRCC)”.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) selected eight cutting-edge projects for the latest round of Sustainable Smart Campus as a Living Lab program for testing on campus. Covering a wide range of sustainability challenges on campus, the projects address energy efficiency, renewable energy optimization, water management, wellness, ecosystem enhancement, and predictive maintenance strategies, providing students and faculty with hands-on experience with prototypes before real-world implementation.