KE Spotlight - Community Engagement - HKU Knowledge Exchange

HKU Engineering award-winning solar car ready for public exhibitions

HKU solar car team - Helios, won the Overall Champion Award and Innovative Design award of the "New Energy New Generation" Solar Car Competition held by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) earlier. The first public exhibition to show the abilities of the solar car will be held during the annual JUPAS Info Week on May 10, 2016. It will then be showcased in primary and secondary schools starting from July. Helios won the competition with its extensive application of principles of engineering mechanics in its design and the high precision in the machining of the parts and components. It was also able to strike a good balance between energy capture from the solar irradiation and energy consumption during running.

HKU develops novel probiotic mixture "Prohep" that may offer potential therapeutic effects on liver cancer

A research team led by Dr Hani El-Nezami and Dr Gianni Panagiotou of the HKU School of Biological Sciences, in collaboration with the HKU Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine and the School of Medicine, University of Eastern Finland, develops a novel probiotic mixture "Prohep" that may have potential therapeutic effects on Hepatocellular carcinoma. The research team found that Prohep, when tested on mice, could slow down the tumor growth significantly and reduce the tumor size and weight. Future research would be to find out how to consume the probiotic mixture to obtain the best results, and to develop more efficient bacterial cocktails. The commercialization of Prohep is being assisted by the HKU Technology Transfer Office and Versitech Limited.

Jockey Club Charities Trust and HKU School of Public Health announce "Family Day 2016" activities

"Family Day 2016" aims at encouraging Hong Kong people to spend more quality time with their family members so as to enhance family harmony and relationship. A series of events will be held from April 22 to June 5 under three themes, namely "Family Day @ Community", "Family Day - Shopping Fun", and "Active Families Sing for Family Day 2016 Fun Fair".

HKU Kadoorie Institute launches "Living Water & Community Revitalisation – An Agricultural-led Action, Engagement and Incubation Programme at Lai Chi Wo"

The HKU Kadoorie Institute will officially launch the "Living Water & Community Revitalisation - An Agricultural-led Action, Engagement and Incubation Programme at Lai Chi Wo" on April 30, 2016. The project is a multi-year rural community development and revitalisation programme which promotes sustainable rural development through farming revitalisation, traditional village conservation, education programmes and scientific research. The aim of the programme is to revive the appearance and activities of the traditional Hakka village Lai Chi Wo as much as possible.

HKU scientists effectively suppress tumour growth by converting Salmonella into YB1 anaerobe bacterium

Researchers at the HKU School of Biomedical Sciences have recently engineered Salmonella into an anaerobe bacterium named YB1 that can only survive and thrive in the hypoxic condition, for example, hypoxic regions inside solid tumours. YB1 can effectively inhibit the growth of tumours while being safe to normal tissues. The patent applications for this invention have been filed in different countries through the Technology Transfer Office of HKU. A patent was recently granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The researchers hope that YB1 can be further developed into a tumour-targeting agent in the near future.

HKU Stephen Hui Geological Museum exhibits fossils from the world famous Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone in Germany

The HKU Stephen Hui Geological Museum launches a two-month exhibition on "Snapshots of a Vanished Environment - Exceptional Fossils from the world famous Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone in Germany" on Earth Day (April 22, 2016), which will run until June 23, 2016. One of the world’s most famous fossil Lagerstaette is the Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone in Germany, which came to fame with the discovery of a number of complete Archaeopteryx fossils. The exhibition presents 11 rare and exceptionally preserved fossil animals from the 150 million-year-old Solnhofen Limestone, some up to 90 centimetres in diameter.

HKU Computer Scientist Dr Cui Heming receives Croucher Innovation Award 2016

Dr Cui Heming, Assistant Professor of the HKU Department of Computer Science, received the Croucher Innovation Award 2016. Dr Cui's recent research has led to several U.S. patents, open source projects, and publication in premier systems software and programming languages conferences. His previous systems have led to several new security errors detected in real-world software. His awarded project focuses on building practical software systems to greatly improve the reliability of today’s general online services. Although this project has started for only one year, a preliminary system built by Dr Cui and his collaborators has been published in the Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP) 2015, the world’s best software system conference in year 2015. All the source code and evaluation results of this system are publicly available for industrial deployment.