News & Stories

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) held its annual ceremony for the award of Honorary Fellowships today. Officiating at the ceremony were the Honorable Andrew Liao Cheung-sing, Chairman of HKUST Council, and Prof Tony F Chan, President of HKUST. Four distinguished leaders, Mr Ming-Wai Lau, Dr Benjamin Xiao-Yi Li, Mr Maximilian Yung Kit Ma, and Mr Samuel Tat Sum Wong, were conferred Honorary Fellowships today.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) hosted the 25th Anniversary Distinguished Speakers Series on 27 May, featuring Dr Randy Schekman, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 2013. The event was well received by students, faculty members and guests from HKUST. In the first part of his talk titled “Secretion of Large Particles and miRNA”, Dr Schekman described a recent discovery that provides insights into how a large-sized protein, procollagen, is packaged into COPII vesicles, which is an essential step for secretion of procollagen. Dr Schekman shared with the audience his findings that ubiquitylation of the cage forming subunit of COPII, Sec31, promotes the formation of large COPII structures that speed the transfer of procollagen out of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER).

Wearing a bicycle helmet helps reduce severe head injuries or even save your life. With more people interested in cycling, a HKUST graduate invented a bicycle helmet with lights which provides greater Jeff Chen Haoran, who graduated from the dual degree program in Mechanical Engineering and General Business Management at HKUST, developed a smart bicycle helmet with integrated turn signals and automatic brake lights. The helmet was co-designed with a partner he met during an exchange trip to Harvard University two years ago. The smart bicycle helmet, “Lumos”, is designed to improve the safety and visibility of cyclists riding after dark. “Riding in HK is comparatively safe because there were a lot of well-designed bike trek. It is not the case in America as cyclist often need to mixed with the traffic and the drivers are not used to pay attention to them” Chen said.

In this century, being a mom has to take up a lot of obligations and expectations from society. Among one of the top concern for mothers is to make sure their babies are eating well, forming a good eating habit. In view of this, a group of three HKUST students came up with an idea of a smart baby bottle device to ease the burden. The invention named Bonnect is a smart infant diet tracker for measuring feeding information and providing parents with analysis of babies’ drinking patterns. It is a ring input device attaching to the bottom of a milk bottle, using Bluetooth to connect with a smart phone and make use of cloud storage for data analysis. Feeding information will then be sent to parents automatically via Bluetooth.

HKUST researchers, collaborating with colleagues from Zhejiang University and the University of Glasgow, have found that the protein interleukin-33 (IL-33) reduces memory loss and other aspects of cognitive decline in conditions similar to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). With 46.8 million people around the world affected by AD and the number rising, the enormous burden on patients, their care-givers and health systems could soon be alleviated. Mainly affecting the elderly, AD involves memory loss and impaired reasoning, judgment and movement. Research team leader Prof. Nancy Ip, Dean of Science, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience and the Morningside Professor of Life Science, described the disease as an “urgent health threat”, particularly in Hong Kong with its rapidly aging population.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) is leading a multi-disciplinary team comprising engineers, computer scientists, environmental scientists and ecologists from various universities and institutions, to study the mechanism of debris flow in efforts to mitigate the risks and damage of landslides in Hong Kong.

Charles WONG and Ricky CHAN, Year 3 students of Risk Management & Business Intelligence (RMBI) Program, won the Champion of the Business Sustainability & Risk Management Case Analysis Competition 2016 organized by The Association of International Accountants (AIA)-Hong Kong Branch.

To support IPO students during examination period and provide them with more vitamin C plus dietary fiber under examination pressure, free fruits will be distributed to IPO students.