News & Stories

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) recently hosted an engaging dialogue featuring three Nobel Prize winners, drawing nearly 200 students, faculty members and guests on campus, and an additional 2,000 online viewers from sister institutions across Mainland China. The event highlighted HKUST’s dedication to fostering cross-disciplinary innovation, and bridging the local scientific community with global thought leaders. As part of the Hong Kong World Youth Science Conference and Xiang Jiang Nobel Forum this year, the event titled “Together with the Scientists – Nobel Laureates Visit HKUST” took place on April 14 in collaboration with the Hong Kong Alumni Association of Beijing Universities. The program showcased the groundbreaking insights from three distinguished laureates: 

A research team led by Prof. LIU Kai from the Division of Life Science and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has established an innovative intracranial pre-olivary pretectal nucleus (OPN) optic tract injury model (pre-OPN OTI), shedding light on crucial mechanisms of functional axonal rewiring following central nervous system injury.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) is excited to kick off a prestigious three-day “Molecular Frontiers Symposium” at Shaw Auditorium on campus today. The high-level event showcases a lineup of internationally renowned scientists including four Nobel laureates, serving as a dynamic thought-leadership platform for exchanging ideas among brilliant and young minds. Around 40 leading molecular scientists, including Nobel laureates Prof. Stefan HELL, Sir Tim HUNT, Prof. K. Barry SHARPLESS, and Sir Gregory WINTER, will share their knowledge and insights spanning the latest development in genome editing, fluorescence microscopy and protein engineering in this inaugural symposium in Greater China entitled "Frontiers of New Knowledge in Science".  

A research team led by Prof. GUO Yusong, Associate Professor of the Division of Life Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), recently made a novel discovery related to the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19. The team identified new host factors that interact with the receptor binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to promote viral entry. This finding offers valuable mechanistic insights and potential therapeutic strategies against SARS-CoV-2 infection.

A research team at HKUST has outlined the high-resolution structure of a little-known virus, improving our understanding of viral infection, which could pave the way for more accurate predictions of climate change.

A research team led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) recently revealed how TMED10, a type of transmembrane protein, regulates muscle stem cell differentiation through mediating the secretion of insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2). This provides potential therapeutic strategies to downregulate IGF2 signaling by inhibiting its secretion. IGF2 is a pivotal player in cellular processes such as proliferation, migration, differentiation, and survival. Its dysregulation has been linked to multiple growth disorders, including Silver–Russell syndrome and Beckwith–Wiedemann syndrome. While the expression of IGF2 and its induced signal transduction pathway have been widely studied, the mechanisms through which newly synthesized IGF2 proteins are secreted to perform their functions have remained enigmatic.

Researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have created a cutting-edge platform consisting of a dual-laser nonlinear optical microscope to investigate the dynamics of muscle satellite cells (MuSCs) during the process of muscle regeneration. This breakthrough has identified new mechanisms of MuSC behavior in muscle repair, paving the way for the development of targeted therapeutic strategies for muscle-related disorders.

A research team from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has identified a key protein that may shed light on how to reverse the aging process using the adult stem cell of skeletal muscle (or muscle stem cells, MuSCs) as a model system. The discovery paves the way for the possible future development of therapeutic interventions for aging-related diseases and various mitochondrial diseases.