Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) is partnering with a global research-driven biopharmaceutical leader in a strategic co-incubation collaboration to promote and nurture start-ups in research and development for infectious diseases and immunology.
HKSTP is dedicated to collaborating with sector leaders in building the strongest I&T eco-system to help start-ups via business development, mentorship and investment initiatives. In the last five years, the number of biotech companies at HKSTP has tripled from 50 to over 150, which has also synched with the Government’s strategic focus on biomedical technology with an allocation of HK$10 billion to develop life and health technology as a key future growth sector for Hong Kong.
This partnership between HKSTP and the biopharmaceutical leader marks a key milestone to drive Hong Kong’s biomedical technology development. Both local and global qualified start-ups in infectious diseases and immunology can apply to the incubation programme to access the full capabilities of the HKSTP ecosystem and the biopharmaceutical leader’s extensive biotech funding network.
Incubatees can access one-on-one coaching and assessment to track key research milestones while receiving expert guidance from HKSTP on commercialisation, manufacturing, scaling-up and marketing strategy to ensure successful innovation, plus vital funding opportunities and investment insight from BI.
The CEO of HKSTP stated that Hong Kong is now Asia’s largest and the world’s second-largest fundraising hub for biotech. As HKSTP enters its second decade of propelling success and innovation, its mission is to drive the growth of biotech to another level with world-class leaders like the biopharmaceutical leader. The aim is to maximise the GBA growth opportunities for high-potential tech talents and early-stage start-ups to ensure the region emerges as a global I&T powerhouse.
The Head of the Institute for Translational Research of HKSTP stated that the partnership provides early-stage start-ups and promising university spinoffs with vital support at the most critical stage of their long and challenging biotech innovation journey.
Incubatees will have access to HKSTP’s Incu-Bio Programme, with total incubatees doubling up in the last five years. The start-ups can also access funding support of up to HK$6 million, with financial subsidies and upfront grants to cover regulatory activities such as clinical trials.
Meanwhile, the Global Head of the biopharmaceutical leader stated that the jointly initiated co-incubation program will enable the company to identify more breakthrough technologies in the early stage of development. With the funding and infrastructure support offered by the two parties’ expertise and experiences in the successful development of breakthrough medications for patients, the start-ups will be fostered and the gap between science and industry can be bridged to enable the local ecosystem.
The President & CEO of the biopharmaceutical leader’s China branch stated that the innovation competency of biopharmaceuticals in Asia is rising quickly. To grab the opportunities in this market, the company has set up the External Innovation Hub in China. He added that this presents a great opportunity to partner with HKSTP to develop the local ecosystem, and further enhance China’s dual-circulation scheme.
Programme incubatees will also benefit from HKSTP’s rapidly-growing biotech R&D capabilities including the HKSTP Institute for Translational Research (ITR), enabling biomedical start-ups to turn their innovative biomedical technologies into life-changing impact on patients and society. Also available to start-ups is HKSTP’s Incu-Bio program providing dedicated biotech mentorship, business matching, entrepreneur-in-residence, and access to R&D facilities and the Science Parks’ diverse talent pool.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a method that allows them to measure nanometer-scale features at any arbitrary frequency. Precision measurements in materials science and fundamental physics have been made possible by quantum sensors, which detect the most minute variations in magnetic or electrical fields. However, these sensors can only detect a few specific frequencies of these fields, limiting their utility.
Quantum sensors can take a variety of shapes; fundamentally, they are systems in which some particles are in such a delicately balanced condition that they are impacted by even minute alterations in the fields to which they are exposed.
It can characterise the distribution of the field [generated by the antenna] with nanoscale resolution, so it’s very promising in that direction.
– Guoqing Wang, Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Professor Wang added that this system could be used, for example, to characterise in detail the performance of a microwave antenna. These can take the form of neutral atoms, trapped ions, and solid-state spins, and research utilising these types of sensors has expanded significantly.
The new system that the team made, which they call a “quantum mixer,” uses a beam of microwaves to add a second frequency to the detector. This changes the frequency of the field being studied into a different frequency.
This simple process lets the detector home in on any frequency it wants, and it doesn’t change the sensor’s ability to see things on a nanoscale. This simple procedure allows the detector to zero in on any desired frequency while maintaining the sensor’s nanoscale spatial resolution. Because it can make a variety of frequencies of electrical or magnetic activity accessible at the level of a single cell, the technology may enable new biomedical applications.
Using present quantum sensing technologies, it would be exceedingly difficult to get a usable resolution for such signals. Using this method, it may be able to identify output signals from a single neuron in response to a stimulus. The new system could potentially be used to characterise the behaviour of exotic materials, such as 2D materials, whose electromagnetic, optical, and physical properties are being intensively researched.
In ongoing research, the team investigates the idea of expanding the system to simultaneously explore many frequencies, as opposed to the current system’s single frequency targeting. Using more potent quantum sensing devices at Lincoln Laboratory, where several members of the research team are located, the researchers will also continue to define the system’s capabilities.
Furthermore, during the experiments, the team used a specific device based on an array of nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond, which is a widely used quantum sensing system. Using a qubit detector with a frequency of 2.2 gigahertz, they were able to detect a signal with a frequency of 150 megahertz, which would not have been possible without the quantum multiplexer. Then, they did detailed analyses of the process by building a theoretical framework based on Floquet theory and doing a series of experiments to test the theory’s numerical predictions.
There are other ways to change how sensitive some quantum sensors are to frequency, but they require using large devices and strong magnetic fields that blur the fine details and make it impossible to get the very high resolution that the new system offers.
Wang says that in modern systems like these, “you need to use a strong magnetic field to tune the sensor, but that magnetic field can break the quantum material properties, which can change the phenomenon you want to measure.”
Researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and its spin-off enterprise Red Dot Analytics (RDA) have worked together to develop innovative technologies that cut data centre energy consumption and emissions. The modern digital economy is dependent on data centres, which are currently confronted with several issues, including growing energy costs, stiffer rules on carbon emissions, and the rapid expansion of cloud computing.
Like the equivalent of the metaverse, I envision a Data Centre metaVerse (DCverse), where all data centres are controlled virtually by AI agents.
– Professor Wen Yonggang, Associate Dean-Research, College of Engineering
Professor Wen shared that human operators can remotely control the physical hardware of a data centre in cyberspace, with robots acting as their proxies to implement these modifications. This might create countless opportunities for data centres, such as putting them in cooler environments, such as underground or underwater, where less energy is required for cooling.
Using Artificial Intelligence and digital twins – a full-scale replica of a data centre’s physics and operations in the virtual world – RDA can assist businesses in evaluating the entire life cycle of their operations to ensure a holistic assessment of carbon emissions and energy consumption, and to validate new changes and processes prior to implementing them in the real world.
RDA can optimise the operations of a data centre, increase its stability and performance, and reduce energy consumption by up to 30%, resulting in a substantial decrease in electricity bills and associated carbon emissions.
The country’s efficient digital and electricity infrastructure, few natural risks, business-friendly environment, and trained workforce make it a desirable location for data centres, however, the warm tropical climate provides issues for data centre operations, especially with global warming that resulted in half of tropical data centre energy use going to cooling.
A data centre’s architecture and operations will be examined from beginning to end using RDA’s revolutionary Performance and Sustainability Lifecycle methodology. RDA may then increase operation efficiency using approaches like predictive maintenance, capacity planning, and dynamic workload and cooling allocation based on the vast amount of data gathered.
For example, if server loads can be dispersed evenly in real-time via AI optimisation, the servers will generate less heat and energy will be saved by avoiding the common practice of over-cooling, which is used to accommodate unexpected peak demands.
An overall reduction in data centre electricity usage will help Singapore achieve its climate goals of net zero emissions by mid-century, as revealed in March’s Budget 2022.
Recently, Singapore has also lifted a prohibition on new data centres that had been in effect since 2019 and established a pilot phase of new sustainable data centres that must contain innovations and sustainability solutions. This is in line with the government’s goal of establishing data centres that are best-in-class in terms of resource efficiency and contribution to economic and strategic goals.
Meanwhile, research at NTU Singapore is still ongoing to develop a “digital-first” approach for data centre designs. Instead of designing a prototype data centre and building it in the real world to verify its performance, Prof. Wen and his team created a framework and software for a virtual data centre. AI agents optimise the architecture and operations to achieve the finest virtual data centre that can be used to establish and control the real one.
The Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated a centre at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) focussing on brain research. This Centre for Brain Research (CBR) will provide evidence-based public health interventions to manage age-related brain disorders. The CBR will carry out vital research to explore appropriate, evidence-based public health interventions to delay the onset of dementia and slow down its progress.
An 800 bedded multispeciality hospital will be developed on the campus of IISc Bengaluru to help integrate science, engineering and medicine at the prestigious institute. It will provide a major push to clinical research in the country and will work toward finding innovative solutions that will help in the improvement of healthcare services in the country. The facility will have advanced facilities for diagnostics, treatment and research. The clinical and surgical departments in the hospital will facilitate comprehensive treatment and healthcare delivery in several specialities
The IISc is a flagship institute in India for cutting-edge research and education, with a dual focus on science and engineering. Keeping with global patterns that combine science, engineering and medicine, IISc plans to establish a Postgraduate Medical School along with a multi-speciality hospital at its Bengaluru campus.
As technology plays an increasingly vital role in patient outcomes, the facility will deploy advanced digital technologies and solutions, such as integrated Electronic Medical Record systems and a comprehensive telemedicine suite with haptics interfaces.
The academic centrepiece of this initiative will be an integrated dual degree MD-PhD programme aimed at creating a new breed of physician-scientists, who will pursue careers in clinical research to develop new treatments and healthcare solutions, driven by a bench-to-bedside philosophy.
The key enabler of this endeavour would be the not-for-profit, 800-bed multi-speciality hospital, catering to the clinical training and research activities of the academic programme. Prof Govindan Rangarajan, Director, Indian Institute of Science was hopeful that the partnership creates a new template for institution building in India, particularly in medical research.
As in many countries across the world, India’s healthcare system, too, has many inequalities in distribution, lacks proper infrastructure and has a dearth of trained clinicians. However, with more than a billion citizens extensively connected to the internet connection and widespread use of smartphones offers distinctive advantages and prospects for innovation of sustainable and scalable healthcare technologies.
Before the pandemic and now driven by it, AI, ML and a plethora of related innovative tech solutions and platforms are driving strong growth and investments both by the public and private sectors.
The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) aims to develop the backbone necessary to support the integrated digital health infrastructure of the country. It will bridge the existing gap amongst different stakeholders of the healthcare ecosystem through digital highways.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, the National Health Authority (NHA) under its flagship scheme of Ayushman Bharat has launched a public dashboard for real-time information on the scheme, informed the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
More recently, the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has launched an application under the Baal Swaraj portal to help rehabilitate children in street situations (CiSS). Baal Swaraj enables the real-time online tracking and monitoring of children in need of care and protection.
According to a press release, the portal is a first-of-its-kind initiative in India. The CiSS application will be used to receive and log CiSS data from every state and union territory in the country. It will track a child’s rescue and rehabilitation process.
The National University of Singapore (NUS) has reported good results in employing CURATE.AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) application that helps clinicians identify appropriate and tailored chemotherapy doses for patients. The research is in partnership with clinicians from the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore (NCIS) which is part of the National University Health System (NUHS).
The goal of CURATE.AI is to potentially uncover more treatment responders, as well as to find the best doses for patients to maximise efficacy and extend the time a patient is receptive to treatment. These doses may be lower for some patients than the high amounts that have been used in the past.
“Using CURATE.AI, which is efficacy-driven, we hope to help doctors quickly identify the optimal doses that are customised for each patient at different stages of the treatment cycle,” explained Dr Dean Ho, who heads the NUS Department of Biomedical Engineering and co-corresponding author of the study.
Dr Ho added that the goal is to improve both patient and treatment outcomes. Chemotherapy is frequently administered in fixed doses based on patient parameters. These toxicity-guided doses, however, may not result in an optimal response to treatment.
Dr Ho created the CURATE.AI together with his colleagues. He explained that the platform is an optimisation programme that uses a patient’s clinical data, including medication kind, dose, and cancer biomarkers, to create a customised digital profile that can be used to tailor the best dose during chemotherapy treatment.
The direct involvement of clinicians in building individualised datasets is an important aspect of applying AI in medicine. The pilot trial is an encouraging first step toward incorporating CURATE.AI into the clinical workflow of dynamic dose selection in the treatment of solid tumours.
The primary goal of CURATE.AI will enable truly personalised dosing for patients while also empowering clinicians to determine the best dose for each patient without increasing their workload. Clinicians can thus devote more time to the patient and caregiver.
Moreover, CURATE.AI uses each patient’s clinical data to calibrate medicine dosage. Each patient is given different pharmacological doses and their response is measured. This data is combined with clinical data to create a digital patient profile. It optimises treatment outcomes for each digital profile by linking medicine dosing to efficacy and safety. The dose may change during treatment.
Clinicians were allowed to accept or reject CURATE.AI dose recommendations based on the clinical judgement during the pilot trial, which ran from August 2020 to April 2022 at the National University Hospital.
The results of the pilot trial were presented at the 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting as a prospective and interventional study that harnesses an AI-based approach to human treatment. ASCO is a leading professional organisation for cancer caregivers, and the meeting will feature presentations on the most recent advances in cancer research.
Other study findings included patient adherence to suggested doses of 80 per cent and 100 per cent compliance in delivering dosing recommendations within the appropriate timeframe. These preliminary findings are encouraging in terms of CURATE’s downstream deployment. Putting artificial intelligence into clinical practice.
Following this initial step toward incorporating CURATE.AI into clinical workflows for dose selection in solid tumour treatment, the NUS team will move forward with a larger, randomised trial to further validate the platform’s performance.
The research team will also conduct clinical trials involving patients with other types of cancer, such as multiple myeloma, as well as disorders such as hypertension. Notably, the team will soon begin a trial to optimise personalised immunotherapy dosing for solid cancers.
Label-free, non-invasive, and quantitative monitoring of cellular activities is crucial for understanding various biological processes and the response of cells to therapeutic drugs. However, existing approaches are often hindered by their multiple time-consuming preparation steps, complicated apparatus, and incompatibility which may interfere with the cells and cause unwanted influence on them.
An interdisciplinary research team led by Dr Zhiqin Chu of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Dr Yuan Lin of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, HKU, in collaboration with Dr Kwai Hei Li from Southern University of Science and Technology, has developed a low-cost, highly miniaturised and incubator compatible GaN chipscope, which enables real-time monitoring of cells in the limited and humid space of an incubator.
This practical device would provide new insights into the fundamental research of cell biology and drug discovery and assist in the development of a new generation of biosensors. The team has filed for a US provisional patent.
Compared with conventional fluorescence molecules and radionuclide-based labelling techniques, label-free analysis enables bio-signals changes to be monitored in real-time without artificial manipulation of individual samples. It allows the targeted samples to retain their intrinsic states, minimising the side effects on the native conformation and biological activity of the targeted ligands, cells, or tissues.
To date, the leading label-free sensing technology in the market is electric impedance sensing-based microelectronic sensors. This electric sensor contains an array of gold biosensors integrated into the well plate, allowing real-time impedance detection to track and quantify the living cell adhesion-related dynamics. However, the electric field employed there could potentially interfere with samples sensitive to electrical signals, such as nerves, and myocardium.
As alternatives, optical evanescence field based sensing approaches, including resonant waveguide grating biosensor (RWG) and surface plasmon resonance (SPR), have attracted intensive interest in recent years due to their non-invasive and label-free nature.
While these technologies have superior optical precision and have been widely used in the study of biomolecule interactions and living cell activities detection, they have a high demand for the testing condition and overall set-up, posing great constraints to their wide applications in diverse environments.
The established GaN-based monolithic chipscope integrates a customised mini differential interference contrast (DIC) microscope that can quantitatively monitor the progression of different intracellular processes in a label-free manner. It enables not only a photoelectric readout of cellular/subcellular refractive index (RI) changes but also the real-time imaging of cellular/subcellular ultrastructural features in the incubator.
The heart of this system is a miniaturised GaN photonic chip that integrates microscale InGaN/GaN based-light emission and photodetection subunits (LED-PD). Its unique stacked design of distributed Bragg reflector can dramatically enhance the light collection efficiency.
The miniaturised GaN photonic chip is capable of photoelectric detection, enabling the real-time refractive index monitoring induced by the collective cell behaviours at the chip surface. Meanwhile, benefitting from the integrated mini-DIC imaging system, users can clearly capture the cell morphology changes in real-time. By coupling the imaging unit and RI sensing unit, the platform can quantitatively recognise the cell behaviours in situ, including cell precipitation, initial attachment, spreading, shrinkage, etc. This practical, ready-to-use cell analyser has been successfully applied in pharmaceutical activity screening, and immune cell phenotypes transform track.
This research expands the applications of GaN photonic chips in the biosensing area. In particular, the combined strategy of chip sensor and optical imaging transcends the boundaries of the conventional “photonic chip” and “microscopy” monitoring processes. The resulting “chipscope” represents a significant and exciting advance in the development of biosensors.
The research work was published in an article entitled “A versatile, incubator-compatible, monolithic GaN photonic chipscope for label-free monitoring of live cell activities” in the top multidisciplinary journal, Advanced Science.
Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies of Singapore announced the start date of the United Kingdom (UK) – Singapore Digital Economy Agreement (UKSDEA). This is Singapore’s third DEA following the completion of domestic ratification processes between the two countries.
The UKSDEA was signed early this year by S Iswaran, who oversees trade relations, and Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who oversees international trade for the UK. Since then, the UK and Singapore have worked quickly to finish the legal requirements and other steps needed for the agreement to go into effect.
The UKSDEA will help our businesses engage seamlessly with those in the UK as internationalisation is a key growth enabler of our companies. We are looking forward to working with the government and our counterpart associations in the UK to translate the agreement into actionable connections that our companies can leverage.
– Yean Cheong, Executive Director, SGTech
Cheong added that digital agreements are an essential foundation for global digital trade, and they believe that layering the means to enable trusted cross-border transactions and data exchange, via digital trust, can strengthen and amplify this foundation. SGTeach is one of the companies that make up UKSDEA.
The entry into force of the UKSDEA reflects the UK and Singapore’s strong commitment to opening new growth opportunities for Singapore businesses in the digital economy. End-to-end digital trade benefits businesses, such as safe and secure e-payments and paperless trading, as well as seamless and trusted data flows, which encourage participation in the digital economy. Consumers will benefit from improved online consumer protection and safe and secure cross-border payments.
Singapore and the United Kingdom have also signed three Memorandums of Understanding and exchanged two side letters as part of their efforts to pursue collaborative projects on forward-thinking and emerging issues under the UKSDEA.
UKSDEA Highlights
Singapore and the United Kingdom will assist the development of safe and secure cross-border E-payments by supporting open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), adopting internationally accepted standards, and promoting interoperability between E-payment systems.
The two countries will accept also electronic versions of trade administration paperwork to encourage digitisation and the sharing of vital commercial documents. Both sides will also attempt to facilitate the digitisation of cross-border supply chains. It enables electronic commerce and other digitally-enabled activities such as data analytics and artificial intelligence, data flow is becoming increasingly crucial to the expansion of the global economy.
Singapore and the United Kingdom will implement regulations against data localisation requirements and allow businesses to pick where their data is housed. They will ensure access to submarine cable systems and associated infrastructure such as landing stations, and expedient installation, maintenance, and repair. These systems and facilities facilitate national, regional, and global communications.
To stimulate innovation in this new data-driven age, especially by SMEs, both countries will make public government information machine-readable and open, with easy-to-use and free Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
On the other hand, to ensure that cryptography-using enterprises can trust their market, stimulate innovation, and protect private keys and related technology, neither country will require their transfer or access as a condition of market entry. To foster innovation and protect company source code, neither country will compel the transfer or access to source code as a condition of market entry.
SMEs boost competitiveness and economic vitality; Singapore and the UK will promote jobs and growth for SMEs and will remove any barriers to participating in the digital economy
The National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has launched an application under the Baal Swaraj portal to help rehabilitate children in street situations (CiSS). Baal Swaraj enables the real-time online tracking and monitoring of children in need of care and protection.
According to a press release, the portal is a first-of-its-kind initiative in India. The CiSS application will be used to receive and log CiSS data from every state and union territory in the country. It will track a child’s rescue and rehabilitation process.
The portal has two functions: COVID-19 care and CiSS. The COVID-19 care link caters to children who have lost either or both parents due to COVID-19 or otherwise post-March 2020. It follows a six-stage framework. In the first stage, through the portal, the child’s details are collected. The second stage is filing a social investigating report (SIR), which investigates the child’s background. The District Child Protection Officer (DCPO) from the District Child Protection Unit (DCPU) supervises this process by talking to and counselling the child. An Individual Care Plan (ICP) is formulated in the third stage. The fourth stage involves getting an order from the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) based on the SIR submitted to the committee. The fifth stage is allocating the schemes and benefits that the beneficiary can avail of. The sixth stage consists of a checklist to evaluate the progress or follow up on the report.
Reporting a child under the CiSS link will lead to a form that will ask for the child’s and the informant’s details. Once registered, a registration ID is generated along with the contact information of the concerned DCPO to follow up. The DCPO will get information about the child on the portal’s dashboard and will take the case forward.
The press release mentioned the application also provides a platform for professionals and organisations to provide any help that they can to children in need. Open shelters, counselling services, medical services, sponsorships, deaddiction services, education services, legal/paralegal services, volunteering, student volunteering, identification of hotspot, identification of CiSS, or any other assistance may be offered.
To provide professional help, one must visit the official website, click on “Citizen Portal” and go to “Providing Services to help CiSS”. Select “For Individual/Professional” to opt to provide a service as an individual or select “For Organisations & Institutions” to opt to provide as an organisation. Fill in all the required details and submit. Once registered, a registration ID is generated along with the contact information of the DCPO of the state or union territory. The participants, including informants, professionals, or organisations, will be awarded a digital certificate acknowledging their contribution after the DCPO assesses the case.
The release stated that the application embodies Article 51 (A) of the Indian Constitution as it provides a platform to the public and organisations catering to the welfare of the children to report any child in need of assistance. NCPCR is an Indian statutory body established by an Act of Parliament, the Commission for Protection of Child Rights (CPCR) Act, 2005.
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