ENKHTAIVAN Ankhbayar, LEI Hei Tung, and YUM Ho Kan, undergraduate Computer Engineering (CE) students from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, have been awarded First Prize (Champion) at the Huawei ICT Competition 2024-2025 Hong Kong SAR Final (Innovation Competition – AI Track) for their project, “Revolutionizing Rodent Management: An Intelligent AI-Powered Control Solution.” Supervised by Dr. SUM Kwok Wing Anthony, their winning project utilizes advanced Huawei AI technologies to create an embedded IoT system that addresses a real-world community issue. The team received a prize of approximately HK$30,000 along with a Certificate of Merit from Huawei and will represent the Hong Kong SAR Team at the Regional Final, which will take place in Malaysia.

The Huawei ICT Competition is a global initiative designed to enable college students to engage with technology leaders and enhance their understanding of technology and international standards. This year's fourth competition in Hong Kong received support from 13 tertiary institutions, with over 900 students participating. The award ceremony was held at Cyberport on 7 December 2024. We are delighted to have had Prof. Irwin KING from our Department and Miss Stefani NG from the CUHK Career Planning and Development Centre join us as distinguished guests to celebrate our success.

Website: https://e.huawei.com/en/talent/ict-academy/#/ict-contest

Hosted by the Joint Laboratory for High Density Electronic Packaging Materials and Devices, and co- organized by The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SIAT), and Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Electronic Materials (SIEM), The Professional Forum for High Density Electronic Packaging Materials and Devices in the Greater Bay Area, X-Lake Forum 2024 was successfully held on 23 November (Saturday) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

As one of the sub-forums of the X-Lake Forum 2024, this forum focused on the latest research results and industry trends in the field of electronic packaging materials and devices, and brought together circa a hundred of top experts, scholars and industrial practitioners from the Greater Bay Area to discuss the future development of electronic packaging materials and devices. The forum is demonstrating "production, education, research and application" through various forms such as invited presentations, theme reports, research output displays, enterprise product exhibitions, as well as research institute visits and exchanges, so as to promote the development and application of electronic packaging and related materials.

Chaired by Professor Xu Jianbin, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Electronic Engineering, CUHK and Academic Vice President of SIAT, various distinguished guests from the academia and the industry attended the forum, including Dr. Zhang Lin, Director of Shenzhen Science, Technology and Innovation Bureau, Professor Alan K.L. Chan, Provost of CUHK, Prof. Wu Chuangzhi, Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice President of SIAT, Dr. Daniel Shi, Vice President of Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute, Prof. Sun Rong, Director of Institute of Advanced Electronic Materials, Professor Tsang Hon-ki, Dean of Faculty of Engineering, CUHK, et al.

To had started with the event, Professor Xu extended a warm welcome to the guests, experts and scholars, as well as all participants. “Through exchanges at this forum and the brain storming, a batch of forward-looking and innovative ideas of high-quality development have been inspired. The R&D alliance of Shenzhen-Hong Kong will further accelerate the construction of a high-level talent base, promote technological innovation and the transformation of scientific and technological outputs, advance the deep integration of the innovation chain, industrial chain, capital chain and talent chain, and help the Greater Bay Area become an important innovation powerhouse for the country to participate in the development of the world's advanced manufacturing base,” said Professor Xu.

Dr. Zhang Lin, Director of the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Science and Technology Innovation, delivered the opening speech. He highlighted that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is one of the world’s most active regions for technological innovation. As the innovation engine of the region, Shenzhen recently achieved a historic milestone at the 26th China High-Tech Fair, with the intended transaction volume surpassing 120 billion RMB, setting a new record. Shenzhen is focusing on the active integration of innovation, manufacturing, and market sectors, deepening reforms in its science and technology system, accelerating the development of major scientific platforms, and promoting the deep integration of innovation chains and industrial chains. These efforts are aimed at building a new development model and establishing Shenzhen as a globally influential hub for technological innovation and a center for emerging industries.

Professor Alan Chan, the Provost of CUHK, expressed warm congratulations and heartfelt thanks to the guests. He noted that this event, as an important sub-forum of the Xili Lake Forum, is dedicated to promoting the flow of high-end talent and technological resources within the Greater Bay Area, and to integrating high-quality resources in the field of high-density electronic packaging. He emphasized that CUHK, as a world-leading institution, will continue to strengthen its long-standing strategic cooperation with the SIAT, particularly in the development of the Joint Laboratory for High-Density Electronic Packaging Materials and Devices, and work together to open a new chapter in technological innovation in the Greater Bay Area.

Professor Wu Chuangzhi, in his speech, mentioned that SIAT, a research institution jointly established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Shenzhen Municipal Government, and CUHK, owes its achievements to the strong support of both the Shenzhen Municipal Government and CUHK. In the 14th Five-Year Plan, SAIT has identified integrated circuits and materials as one of its three key focus areas. The goal is to leverage the innovation resources of the Greater Bay Area, integrate various research and technological strengths, and make breakthroughs in critical core technologies to meet the nation's major strategic needs.

Professor Sun Rong gave a detailed introduction and report on the construction and development of the joint laboratory. With the academic advantages of the Greater Bay Area, as early as 2012, CUHK Faculty of Engineering and SIAT took the lead in developing the pathways of in-depth research collaboration between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and jointly established the Joint Laboratory for High Density Electronic Packaging Materials and Devices. The Joint Laboratory mainly focuses on the R&D and application technology in the field of high-end electronic packaging materials for ICs, and carries out cutting-edge technology research on electronic materials R&D by bringing together the scientific research advantages of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Committed to building an innovation and development platform and creating a hub for high-calibre talent, the Joint Laboratory has achieved a number of research landmarks and has been leading several technological innovations, as well as cultivating numerous high-level talents.

With warm applause, Professor Alan Chan and Professor Wu Chuangzhi jointly unveiled the "Joint Laboratory Plaque”, looking forward to promoting deep integration of industry, academic and research sectors and cultivating high-calibre research and technological talents in the future.

Following the plague unveiling ceremony, the eight distinguished speakers made presentations on their respective research areas and achievements. Through analyzing the research and industrial development strategies of electronic materials from the perspective of industrial development, investment trends, and technological frontiers, the professional presentations bring experience and ideas for the development of the electronic packaging materials industry in the Greater Bay Area. The guests also joined a visit to Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute, Hong Kong Institute of Science & Innovation, Chinese Academy of Sciences for exchange.

The X-Lake Forum is an international innovation forum jointly launched by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Shenzhen Municipal Government, with the permanent theme of "Innovation - Sustainable Development". First held in 2021, the X-Lake Forum has gradually become an important R&D forum for the development of an international science and technology innovation center in the Greater Bay Area. With the theme of "Artificial Intelligence Empowering Future Cities and New Quality Productivity", the 2024 X-Lake Forum will hold 1 opening ceremony and main forum, 29 professional forums, and other supporting activities such as campus open day.

The successful holding of this forum has not only stimulated new momentum into the development of the electronic packaging industry in the Greater Bay Area, but also built a high-level exchange and cooperation platform for all sectors of the industry. Driven by innovation, The Professional Forum for High Density Electronic Packaging Materials and Devices in the Greater Bay Area will continue to promote the development of an international science and technology innovation center in the Greater Bay Area in the future.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s (CUHK) Faculty of Engineering has conducted pioneering research in biological sequence analysis to develop an AI-assisted dense homolog retriever (DHR), a groundbreaking method for rapid, sensitive detection of remote protein homologs. This innovative development is a powerful tool for exploring protein evolution, structure and function, which can accelerate drug discovery and clinical therapies. The study results have been published in Nature Biotechnology and highlighted in Nature Methods.

AI-powered DHR: A fast, accurate solution

Protein homolog detection is fundamental for understanding evolutionary relationships and predicting protein functions. However, traditional detection methods, which rely heavily on sequence alignment techniques, such as dynamic programming-based algorithms (e.g. BLAST, FASTA), are time-consuming and often miss distant homologs with low sequence similarity. This limitation hampers the identification of protein networks essential for drug development and functional annotation.

Led by Professor Li Yu at CUHK’s Faculty of Engineering, the team has developed DHR, a novel AI-powered method, to resolve the fundamental, decades-old protein homology detection problem in computational biology. Unlike traditional methods, DHR uses dense retrieval, a bi-encoder model and contrastive learning to identify subtle homological relationships. By encoding sequences into dense vectors and using a dot product for scoring, DHR surpasses traditional approaches in both speed and precision. “DHR is particularly adept at discovering distant homologs, which are often missed by traditional methods,” said Professor Yu. “It’s not only faster but also more precise, making it ideal for exploring protein sequence diversity across large databases.”

In an era with more frequent AI applications, as large language models have made contextual retrieval possible, the research demonstrated that DHR has already implemented a similar retriever in the protein homolog search field with promising results. This project was initialised to speed up the homolog search speed of the previous AI model AlphaFold 2, which made use of traditional methods and has been successfully integrated into the researchers’ method in the pipeline, resulting in speeds that are several times faster than before and getting rid of the bottleneck. The team plans to create an open-source and user-friendly tool that will allow broader adoption and continued innovation in protein analysis.

DHR helps with development of targeted therapies and new antibiotics

DHR’s ability to detect distant homologs opens new opportunities in drug discovery. In cancer research, for example, it can identify homologs of proteins involved in cell growth and apoptosis, aiding the development of therapies that target tumor growth or induce cancer cell death.

The tool is also valuable in the fight against antibiotic resistance. By detecting conserved proteins essential for bacterial survival across resistant strains, DHR could help researchers develop new antibiotics that remain effective even as bacteria evolve.

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s involve the misfolding and aggregation of specific proteins. By detecting homologs of these proteins, DHR can contribute to a better understanding of the molecular underpinnings of these conditions. This knowledge may facilitate new treatments that prevent protein misfolding or remove toxic aggregates, potentially slowing disease progression.

The full research paper can be found at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-024-02353-6

Professor Anthony Man-Cho So from Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management (SEEM), together with Professor Krishnakumar Balasubramanian (UC Davis Department of Statistics), Dr. Shixiang Chen (former CUHK SEEM PhD student), Dr. Jiaxiang Li, Professor Shiqian Ma (former CUHK SEEM academic staff), and Professor Tong Zhang (The University of Hong Kong), received the 2024 INFORMS Computing Society (ICS) Prize at the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting for their "path-breaking work in Riemannian Optimization". The detailed citation can be found at 

https://connect.informs.org/computing/awards/ics-prize/ics-prize-2022-2026

The ICS Prize is an annual award for the best English language paper or group of related papers dealing with the Operations Research/Computer Science interface. 

The HongKong-CUHK iGEM 2024 Team has been awarded a Gold Medal at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) 2024 Grand Jamboree, held in Paris, France, from October 23 to 26, 2024. In addition to the prestigious Gold Medal, the team was nominated for the Best Education Award in the undergraduate section. The Hong Kong-CUHK team has been distinguished as one of only five nominees globally, joining one winner and three other nominees in this category.

Co-supervised by Professor NGO Chi Ki Jacky from the School of Life Sciences, Professor CHOI Chung Hang Jonathan from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Professor CHAN Ting Fung from the School of Life Sciences, the team comprises six undergraduate students from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and five from the School of Life Sciences. Additionally, four postgraduate students from the School of Life Sciences serve as instructors for the team. 

The HongKong-CUHK iGEM 2024 Team developed ResiSense, a rapid point-of-care test kit for detecting bacterial antibiotic resistance genes. ResiSense offers a fast and cost-effective technology for accurately identifying antibiotic resistance, addressing a global health crisis exacerbated by antibiotic misuse and overuse, which is responsible for millions of deaths, particularly in underdeveloped regions. Current diagnostic methods often require highly trained personnel and expensive on-site equipment, making them impractical in low-resource settings. To mitigate these challenges, the team proposed ResiSense, a cell-free point-of-care strategy designed to rapidly detect bacterial antibiotic resistance genes. 

In the presence of a targeted resistance gene, a selected G-quadruplex DNAzyme is produced from a specially designed DNA template through rolling circle amplification (RCA). The DNAzyme oxidizes colorless tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) into blue TMB⁺, enabling colorimetric detection. As proof of concept, the team generated a non-infectious Escherichia coli strain containing a snippet of blaKPC2, an antibiotic resistance gene from Klebsiella pneumoniae, and successfully detected the gene via the RCA-generated DNAzyme.

About iGEM

The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) is a leading global synthetic biology competition held annually for high school, undergraduate, and postgraduate students. Founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2004, iGEM aims to enhance education in synthetic biology, encourage collaboration, and nurture talent in the field. iGEM projects focus on utilising synthetic biology to address real-world challenges through research, both within and beyond the laboratory.

At the end of each iGEM season, a Grand Jamboree is held where each team presents their work to judges and other teams at a designated venue. The 21st Jamboree in 2024 featured a total of 414 participating teams from over 50 countries and regions, with approximately 5,000 attendees.

More details: https://www.bme.cuhk.edu.hk/new/files/iGEM2024teamwinsgold.pdf