Subject Area: Biology and Medicine
Project Title: Using Data To Transform Diabetes Care and Patient Lives
Project Coordinator: Prof Ronald Ching-wan Ma (CUHK)
Abstract
Diabetes is a common chronic disease characterised by sustained high blood sugar levels, which affects more than 10% of the population in Hong Kong and more than 530 million people worldwide. In addition, abnormal blood glucose now affects approximately one out of every six pregnant women globally, thereby adversely affecting the long-term health of both mothers and their babies. For three decades, the Diabetes and Endocrine Research Group at CUHK has been at the forefront of adopting various research methods to redefine diabetes and translate knowledge into diabetes prevention and treatment strategies. Its researchers were among the first to publish the unique characteristics of Asian patients with diabetes in international journals, including the tendency for young-onset diabetes, metabolic syndrome, kidney disease and cancer. In addition to charting the development of diabetes and metabolic abnormalities across different stages of the life course, the group has also pioneered the discovery of Chinese-relevant genetic markers in diabetes and its complications, and invented the web-based Joint Asia Diabetes Evaluation (JADE®) to use proprietary technology to stratify risk of diabetes, empower patients’ self-management and promote doctor-patient communication.
In 2020, Prof Juliana Chan of CUHK’s Diabetes and Endocrine Research Group spearheaded a group of 44 global experts to spend four years reviewing, critiquing and synthesising evidence, and publishing the Lancet Commission Report on Diabetes, which identified major gaps in prevention, treatment, care and professional education in diabetes, and provided roadmap to reduce burden of diabetes and chronic diseases on our society.
This project seeks to leverage CUHK’s resources, experience and local and international partnerships to reduce these gaps through the following key strategies: (1) establishing a multi-centre Hong Kong Gestational Diabetes Register complemented by a three-year randomised trial incorporating e-care to prevent diabetes in mothers and later generations; (2) implementing a three-year clinical trial to evaluate the effects of a multi-pronged intervention programme incorporating cognitive-psychosocial-behavioural intervention to improve care and quality of life for young people with diabetes and obesity; (3) using big data to evaluate real-world clinical outcome with newer glucose-lowering agents; and (4) expanding existing professional diabetes programmes and annual conferences into a web-based educational platform as part of the Lancet Commission Report’s recommendations for sharing progress and best clinical practices of this project through our global network.
This project builds on the foundation of research, care and education pioneered by the project team over the past three decades, with the support of our long-term partners in the fields of public health, epidemiology, surgery, family medicine, psychology and behavioural science. Designated as an International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Centre of Excellence in Diabetes Care and IDF Centre for Education, our achievements have been recognised with numerous major international awards. Deliverables from this project will transform diabetes care and patients’ lives and position Hong Kong as a global centre of excellence for innovative medicine, translational research, health education and care.
Subject Area: Engineering
Project Title: AI-Powered Surgical Robots
Project Coordinator: Prof Yunhui Liu (CUHK)
Abstract
The medical sector improves the safety and accuracy of surgeries through the use of surgical robots. Surgical robots are being employed to carry out various surgical procedures under the surgeons’ full manual control, which raises concerns on the operational safety and quality due to potential errors and human factors. By introducing novel Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation functions to surgical robots, the operational safety and accuracy can be greatly improved as the robots can automatically complete parts of or the entire surgical procedures.
This project will form an interdisciplinary research team composed of robotics, AI, and medical experts from local institutions including CUHK, CityU, and PolyU to develop cutting-edge AI-powered surgical robots with high autonomy, through close collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, Technical University of Munich, University College London, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, as well as local and Mainland hospitals.
Our objective is to establish an internationally leading research centre on automated robotic surgery in Hong Kong. The technologies to be developed are expected to enable surgical robots (1) to reliably and efficiently sense and understand surgical objects and fields; (2) to automatically conduct surgical planning and navigation during surgical procedure; (3) to learn surgical skills from expert surgeons; and (4) to automatically complete the surgical actions on soft tissues and organs in complicated and dynamic surgical environments.
In particular, the team will work closely on developing core technologies such as real-time 3D reconstruction of surgical objects, surgical workflow recognition, intra-operative planning using multi-modal data (such as MRI, CT, ultrasound, and endoscopic images), surgical skill learning from human demonstrations, and data-driven control of surgical robots. The technologies will be integrated to AI-powered surgical robots, enabling them to perform surgical procedures with high autonomy. Clinical experiments will be conducted to validate the technologies and their applications via urological procedures. If the research outputs are successfully adopted by the industry, this project will significantly contribute to the development of innovation and technology, advancement of healthcare technology, and economic development in Hong Kong.
Subject Area: Engineering
Project Title: Frontier and Human-centric AI and Robotics Technology for Geriatric Care
Project Coordinator: Prof Bertram Emil Shi (HKUST)
Abstract
Life expectancy or lifespan in Hong Kong is among the world’s highest and has been increasing. Unfortunately, increases in health span - the period of time Hong Kongers are in good health - have not kept pace with the rise in longevity. This has resulted in a growing gap: the disability burden. We are spending an increasing percentage of our lives in a state of frailty and disability. This increases stress on our family members, caregivers, and healthcare systems. There is also an “inverted pyramid” of medical training: those who spend the most time caring for the frail elderly have the least formal training. These two trends have led to many unmet needs in elderly care.
Our mission is to improve older individuals’ mental and physical care by developing human-centric frontier artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics technology, which will empower both the elderly themselves and their carers to manage health and address frailty. Unlike conventional approaches to healthcare which typically consider diseases in isolation, the human-centric view at the core of our approach takes a broader multi-faceted perspective, recognizing that care should address not only medical but also social and psychological needs such as emotional support and companionship.