News

PolyU Long Service Award 2020 - Prof. Mo Yang

Department of Biomedical Engineering is very fortunate to have staff members whose many years of dedication, commitment and loyalty to the department have earned our respect. This year, Prof. Mo Yang (Associate Head & Professor) received the 2020 Long Service Award for having worked at BME for 15 years. Prof. Mo Yang joined BME in 2005. His research focuses on microfluidic device for biosensing and nanomaterials based bioprobes for imaging, sensing and therapy. Add to this, countless achievements include publications & bibliometric, journal papers and invited book chapters, keynote talks in conferences and seminars. He has also been in charge of many research projects as principal investigators and was awarded Special Merit Award from Scientific Community of Romania and Gold Medal with the Congratulations of Jury in 2017, and The Faculty Merit Award for Outstanding Performance/Achievement in Research in 2015.

The PolyU-developed non-surgically implanted neurostimulator brings new hope to patients with spinal cord injuries!

Photo credit: K.Y.Cheng ; original links (https://bit.ly/2LYo3kz). While the use of electrical stimulation to aid spinal cord injuries is not something new, the novel PolyUStimulator developed by the research team led by Prof. Zheng Yongping is only about 3mm in size. Given its small size, it can be injected into a patient’s body via a syringe instead of an invasive surgery. With piezoelectric powered by ultrasonic waves transmitted externally, this new device has an advantage over traditional battery-powered ones that require surgical intervention to replace the battery. The estimated cost of the neurostimulator is about US$2,000, one tenth the price of traditional devices currently available on the market. It is expected to be launched in about five years.  More: https://bit.ly/2LYo3kz

BME wins Two TechConnect Global Innovation Awards

Department of Biomedical Engineering won two "Global Innovation Awards" at the TechConnect Business Virtual Summit and Showcase 2020 (TechConnect).  The award-winning innovations are: (1) “PolyUStimulator – Ultrasound Driven Piezoelectric Stimulator for Neuromusculoskeletal Rehabilitation” by Professor Yong-ping ZHENG and Dr Monzurul ALAM, Department of Biomedical Engineering (2) “A Time-dependent Machine-Learning-based Prediction System for Progression of Knee Osteoarthritis” by Mr Toby LI and Mr Justin CHAN, MPhil students under the supervision of Dr Chunyi WEN, Department of Biomedical Engineering (submission made under CLAIRE Clinical AI Research) For more details, please refer to the polyu website (https://polyu.hk/UCYvi). 

HKIE Scholarship 2019/20

Congratulations to Year 3 student TONG Cheuk Ying for receiving the HKIE Scholarship 2019/20! The HKIE Scholarship Scheme aims to recognize the academic achievements of the outstanding full-time engineering undergraduate students and to identify potential engineering students and develop them into future engineers.  Each successful candidate will receive a certificate and a total grant of HK$80,000, which will be disbursed to the recipients in four installments at the end of each academic year. Let's enjoy the video illustrating her involvement in the HKIE activities in the past year:   Video credit: TONG Cheuk Ying; original links(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qINJlc7Q2z0)

Update profile to stay connected amidst distancing

We wish to maintain close links with all our graduates. Keep in touch and be part of our alumni community! 

Best Teaching Assistant Award (2019-20)

The Department of Biomedical Engineering is pleased to announce that the following Teaching Assistants have been selected as the recipients of the “Best Teaching Assistant Award" (2019-20): Mr. BEI Ho Pan – Biomaterials Science and Engineering Miss. GAN Maria – Intellectual Property, Standards and Regulations of Medical Devices Mr. HO Kwun Hei Willis – Wearable Healthcare and Fitness Devices for Everyone The captioned Award is established to show the department’s appreciation for teaching assistants with their outstanding teaching support. 

A low-cost handheld device for decentralized COVID-19 testing

Photo credit: unwire.hk; original links (https://unwire.pro/2020/08/19/poly-u/executive-interview/).Dr. Thomas Ming Hung LEE (Associate Professor and Associate Head (Academic) of the Department of Biomedical Engineering) and Prof. Shea Ping YIP (Professor and Head of the Department of Health Technology and Informatics) were interviewed by Unwire.Pro on the project “A low-cost handheld device for decentralized detection of SARS-CoV-2 and host response in COVID-19 patients: Development and evaluation” funded by the Health and Medical Research Fund of the Food and Health Bureau. The primary aim of the project is to achieve rapid COVID-19 screening in decentralized settings such as airports, quarantine centers, and private clinics. The research team has developed gold nanoparticle-based colorimetric probes for monitoring nucleic acid amplification reaction. The assay is conducted with the use of a low-cost handheld device built by the Industrial Centre. The interview videos are available at Unwire.Pro and Unwire.HK .

Dr. Puxiang Lai Receives Faculty Merit Award in Research and Scholarly Activities (Individual) for 2019/2020

“Light is almost an ideal form of electromagnetic waves to probe and treat biological tissues,” says Dr. Lai. “Its applications, however, are limited due to the inherent strong scattering of light in tissue. Different from the traditional wisdom that treats multiple scattering of light as a problem, it could also be part of the solution. Our long-term research goal is to better understand the principles and mechanisms of optical scattering and optical speckles, and break the rules and limitations of visualizing, interrogating, treating, and controlling biological tissue by using light.”    Dr. Puxiang Lai is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering. His research is mainly focused on high-resolution deep-tissue optical focusing, imaging, treatment, and stimulation as well as their applications in biomedicine.   

Applaud of Our Teacher, Dr. Hin Chung Lau

“Students should grasp every opportunity they have at University to explore and to equip themselves differently from their peers before embarking on their careers. I am here to cultivate collaborative learning through inter-faculty multidisciplinary student design projects for a unique learning experience for students.”   Below are some highlights of Dr. Lau's contribution and impact in teaching & learning: • Supervised BME21111, BME31139 and Final Year Project students to secure 10 awards at international competitions and seed funds for start-up (2015-2020) • Co-inventor of “Gongyeh” (講嘢): an app for students’ presentation video recording and real-time peer feedback • Initiated collaboration with partner institutions in UK, Singapore, Mainland China (2017-2018) and Imperial College London (2019-present) for joint student projects in subjects BME21111 and BME31139 • Established joint student projects and educational support with external partners such as The Hong Kong Society for the Blind (2018-2024) and Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council (2018-present) • Organised 第一屆生物醫學工程創意競賽之「愛。創耆樂」to promote Biomedical Engineering, STEM education and Service-learning. The event engaged more than 790 participants    

PolyU BME’s Joint Research on Mussel Adhesive Peptide Mimics Published in PNAS

PolyU BME’s joint research on mussel adhesive peptide mimics published in PNAS A research paper titled “Bioclickable and mussel adhesive peptide mimics for engineering vascular stent surfaces”, co-authored by Dr Xin Zhao, Assistant Professor and Professor Zhilu Yang of Southwest Jiaotong University (as lead authors), and other researchers from Southwest Jiaotong University and Jiangsu University, is published in the world-renowned scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). Their biomimetic surface engineering strategy represents a promising solution to address clinical complications of cardiovascular stents and other blood-contacting metal materials. Online coverage: PNAS - https://bit.ly/2BXAiJk  Toutiao - https://bit.ly/3e1UQhb