KE Spotlight - Community Engagement - HKU Knowledge Exchange

Four HKU teams win in Cyberport University Partnership Programme 2016

The Cyberport University Partnership Programme (CUPP) is a FinTech-focused entrepreneurship programme launched in 2015 by Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited. This year, 20 student teams were selected from six universities in Hong Kong to join a 1-week long startup bootcamp at Stanford University Graduate School of Business (GSB) in September. They pitched their FinTech ideas at the final held on October 27 to compete for ten HK$100,000 awards from the Cyberport Creative Micro Fund. All four HKU teams won in the final.

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.

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.

Open Innovation and Public-Private Partnerships

Professor Raj Thampuran, Managing Director, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, gave a public lecture entitled "Open Innovation and Public-Private Partnerships" at HKU on January 25, 2016. Professor Thampuran elaborates on the importance of R&D and innovation for Singapore's economic transformation and growth, and A*STAR's role in Singapore's innovation system, as the primary mission-oriented government agency tasked with advancing innovation-based growth.