News & Stories

Staying ahead in an increasingly hyper-competitive global playing field requires sharp observation and analytical thinking, and with that, the ability to think critically and execute an experiment is equally important. To encourage Hong Kong’s budding science student to go beyond their textbooks and demonstrate their mastery of the biology concepts via their problem-solving skills, HKUST is hosting Hong Kong’s first biology competition for senior secondary students: The Hong Kong Joint-School Biology Olympiad (HKJSBO).

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Chiaphua Industries Limited (CIL) officially establish the HKUST-CIL Joint Laboratory of Innovative Environmental Health Technologies today. The Joint Lab aims to nurture cutting-edge research in environmental health technologies to enhance the quality of the environment as well as health and well-being of individuals and communities. It will receive funding from CIL for the coming five years.

A research team led by Prof Tang Benzhong – Stephen Kam-chuen Cheong Professor of Science and Chair Professor of Chemistry at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), received the State Natural Science Award (First Class) 2017 from Premier Li Keqiang in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing this morning, in recognition of his outstanding achievements in research on aggregation-induced emission (AIE), and such discovery’s significant contribution to life science, medicine and applied science.

Dr Jason Chan of the Chemistry Department is passionate about sharing knowledge with the new generation, but underpinning this obsession is love and respect for chemicals. He might look like an ordinary professor but Dr Jason Chan is a lively spark. The Hong Kong native is in the limelight promoting chemistry on TV shows including TVB’s “Scoop” and “Sidewalk Scientist”. However, he got a start in very humble beginnings, with home experiments in his washroom. “I’m a collector of the elements, and as a high school student I was once making bromine, a very corrosive liquid, for my elements collection and after sealing the liquid into glass ampoules, I found one had not been sealed properly,” he says.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and leading genomics organization BGI Group will establish a joint research center that will set the stage for the next-generation sequencing platform and research efforts that produce novel medical diagnosis and treatments with transformative impact. Witnessed by HKUST President Prof Tony F Chan and BGI Group President and Co-founder Prof Wang Jian, the memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by Prof Nancy Ip, HKUST Vice-President for Research and Graduate Studies and Mr Duncan Yu, BGI Group Vice President at the ceremony held on 27 July. The MoU underlines the commitment of establishing a HKUST-BGI Joint Research Center. The center aims to promote mutually beneficial cooperation in biotechnological science and engineering, and benefit mankind by solving problems in areas such as healthcare, conservation and environment.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) researchers have successfully created solid composite materials with the unique wave property of fluid, a property of which forbids the transmission of transverse waves. The transverse waves can lead to destructive horizontal shaking during earthquake. Such composite, also called “metamaterials”, can be used for wave filtering and vibration control, and may eventually provide an alternative earthquake proofing solution as well as improve the efficiency of medical ultrasound transducers.

Late stage renal disease is debilitating. When their kidneys stop functioning, patients are treated through dialysis that have serious physical side effects and are costly for many. But change may soon be coming—a team of HKUST students has invented a solution that uses graphene to reduce dialysis treatment time and costs, and enhance its effectiveness. The team’s idea is simple yet previously untested. Dialysis usually filters out all blood impurities, but surface-modified graphene can trap targeted impurities, ensuring that vital salt and glucose are retained. As a result, life expectancy for patients should go up, and treatment time would also be greatly reduced.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) is dedicated to nurturing students’ passion and interests in research. Three undergraduate students have recently discovered a method that could make production of entangled photon pairs (biphotons) – an essential element for quantum communication and quantum network – much easier and cheaper, taking popularization of such next-generation communication a step closer to reality.