News & Stories

Researchers from the School of Engineering of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have successfully developed the world’s smallest multifunctional biomedical robot, which is 60% smaller than current models. Capable of imaging, high-precision motion, and multifunctional operations like sampling, drug delivery, and laser ablation, the robot offers competitive imaging performance and a tenfold improvement in obstacle detection, paving the way for robotic applications in narrow and challenging channels of the human body, such as the lung’s end bronchi and the oviducts.

The effectiveness of mRNA vaccines and drugs – such as those used against cancer and Covid-19, will be greatly boosted.

https://30a.hkust.edu.hk/our-impact/turning-garbage-strongest-material

People who suffer from diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration would usually be treated with intravitreal eye injections — a procedure to deliver drugs directly to the eye using a thin, tiny needle. This invasive treatment involves a certain degree of risk and the scary-looking procedure is surely not for the fainted heart. Langston SUEN and his fellow researchers at HKUST explored an alternative method of non-invasive drug delivery using ultrasound as part of his PhD studies at the University. Now he is working with pharmaceuticals to bring the technology to market. 

A novel brain-wide genome-editing technology offers immense potential to be translated as a novel long-acting therapeutic treatment for Alzheimer’s patients.

HKUST researchers have uncovered a new gene mutation responsible for a brain vascular disorder which inflicted about 10~30 million people in the world.

In a new study, scientists at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have revealed that most T cell epitopes known to be targeted upon natural infection are seemingly unaffected by current SARS-CoV-2 variants. In their latest research, the team compiled and analysed data from 18 immunological studies of T cell responses involving over 850 recovered COVID-19 patients from across four continents who are well-distributed in age, gender, disease severity and blood collection time. They demonstrated that T cells in these patients targeted fragments (epitopes) of almost all of the virus' proteins, including the spike protein that is a main target of many existing vaccines. As an important finding, based on analysis of over 850,000 SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences from around the world, most of these epitopes appeared to be unaffected by the current variants of concern.

The HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2020 has seen a record high number of participating teams at its 10th anniversary this year.  Three winning teams comprising students, faculty and alumni of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) will compete with finalists from seven other regions, including Macau, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Zhongshan and the Yangtze River Delta, in the Grand Final to be held later this year.