Project Reference No. : C1002-21GF
Project Title : Aqueous Zn-based batteries with ultimate safety and high energy density for large scale energy storage system
Project Coordinator : Professor ZHI Chunyi
University : City University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
While the application of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is expanding rapidly, more and more accidents induced by LIBs are reported. In fact, mobile devices such as mobile phones and electric vehicles, require high energy density to ensure their service time. Beyond that, many other application scenarios require more on safety rather than energy density, such as large-scale stationary energy storage systems.
LIB is a high energy density system but not intrinsically safe. Researchers have put great efforts to improve their safety performance. In fact, we may choose to start from an intrinsically safe system and improve their energy performance. Aqueous electrolyte zinc batteries (ZBs) use water as electrolytes and stable zinc anode. They are intrinsically safe and promising for high energy performance. Our project will develop high-performance aqueous ZBs and use them to construct large scale energy storage systems with ultimate safety. The project results may benefit safe use of energy and promote sustainable development of modern society.
Project Reference No. : C1013-21GF
Project Title : Theoretical Study and Applications of Deep Neural Networks
Project Coordinator : Professor CHAN Hon-fu Raymond
University : City University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Deep neural networks (DNNs) have provided various super-efficient algorithms for processing data from many fields in science and technology that involve large amounts of data, such as image and video analysis, bioinformatics, finance. However, confidence in using DNNs is still one of the most important challenges of artificial intelligence today. We need a rigorous theoretical foundation for their approximation, modeling performance, and generalization to understand how and why they work efficiently. In this proposal, we plan to (i) establish the mathematical theory of DNNs in various theoretical aspects and analyze their corresponding deep learning algorithms, and (ii) apply it to design better networks and algorithms for practical problems in image, video, and natural language processing. The successful implementation of our theory and algorithms will be profitable to a broad spectrum in science and technology and give rise to new techniques for machine learning, image processing, and optimization.
Project Reference No. : C1017-21GF
Project Title : Designing self-healing high entropy alloys for advanced nuclear applications
Project Coordinator : Professor KAI Ji-jung
University : City University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
With the growing worldwide energy crisis and environmental pollution, accelerated design of advanced generation-four (G-IV) nuclear reactors is pressingly needed. However, aggressive features in the advanced G-IV reactors will dramatically speed up the material degradation and cause early failure and decommissioning of them. To break through this thorny dilemma, in this proposal, we plan to develop the novel irradiation-tolerance self-healing high-entropy alloys (HEAs) strengthened by dense nanoparticles. More specifically, a high density of coherent L12 nanoparticles will be controllably introduced. Excellent microstructural stability, mechanical behaviors, and unusual "self-healing behavior" with extraordinary irradiation resistance at high temperatures can be simultaneously expected due to the strong precipitation hardening effect from the dense L12 phase with ultrahigh thermal stability. The successful implementation of this project will give insights into the self-healed metallic alloys and provides new opportunities for designing novel irradiation tolerant structural materials for the next-generation nuclear reactors.
Project Reference No. : C1020-21GF
Project Title : Competing deformation mechanisms of complex alloys at thermomechanical extremes
Project Coordinator : Professor WANG Xun-li
University : City University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
The demand for structural materials that can withstand extreme temperatures has been a major challenge facing the society. Conventional materials cannot meet these challenging demands. As a result, the design of new materials has increasingly emphasized on complexity, in terms of composition selection and microstructure control.
This project builds on our prior successes in synthesis and characterization of complex alloys. Through computation-aided alloy design, we aim to demonstrate complex multicomponent alloys with an excellent combination of strength-ductility for applications at extremely high and extremely low temperatures, respectively. In situ neutron diffraction, a powerful technique for characterizing deformation behaviours, will be used to reveal the different competing deformation mechanisms and their interactions, in conjunction with analysis by transmission electron microscopy and atom probe tomography. Molecular dynamics simulations will be employed to interpret the experimental results and determine key parameters that contribute to the extraordinary mechanical properties. We expect that the approach demonstrated here will advance the development of new structure materials, through the synergy of informed design, innovative characterization, and physics-based computer simulations.
Project Reference No. : C1043-21GF
Project Title : Synthesized CCK-B Receptor Agonists to Alleviate Anterograde Amnesia in Animal Models
Project Coordinator : Professor HE Jufang
University : City University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one type of dementia and a prevalent mental disorder in the elderly. As one major symptom of dementia, patients with anterograde amnesia display an inability in new memory formation. The entorhinal cortex (Ent) is the earliest site of atrophy in patients developing AD, indicating that the Ent is strongly related to the development of dementia. Our recent studies have revealed that the Ent enables associative memory encoding in the neocortex by releasing cholecystokinin (CCK). CCK acts as a molecular switch for memory formation. Besides, CCK knockout (CCK-/-) mice also show deficits in learning and memory, like anterograde amnesia. We successfully rescued these deficits by systemic administration of CCK-4, a natural agonist of CCK B receptor (CCKBR). Thereout, CCK-4 is a potential drug candidate to treat anterograde amnesia. However, its short half-life hampers it from becoming a drug candidate. We aim to synthesize new CCKBR agonists to alleviate anterograde amnesia in animal models and we are confident to identify compounds with good therapeutic effects on anterograde amnesia.
Project Reference No. : C1052-21GF
Project Title : Development of Novel Integrated Wireless Motor Drives for Cordless Joints of Robotics
Project Coordinator : Professor LIU Chunhua
University : City University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Robotics have attracted much attention in the field of industrial applications in recent years, particularly in unmanned mass production with industrial robots and collaborative robots. Conventionally, the motor drive is externally installed with cables placed between the robotic limbs, which unavoidably bring the troubles of heavy robotic joint modules, regular maintenance, low freedom, and non-flexible arrangement of joints. How to artfully remove the power and signal cables from the actuators of robotic joints, effectively enhance the system freedom and reliability, and ultimately offer the high operation flexibility, become a transformative and high impact topic. Thus, this project aims to develop a novel breed of wireless motor and drive systems for cordless robotic joints with artfully incorporating the wireless power transfer into the synchronous motor design. With a novel and artful design of both system structure and power flow, the proposed novel motor drive is capable to satisfy the multi-joint robotic system by removing the power cables and signal cables from joint actuators. The success of this project will bring the transformative innovation for robotic actuators and greatly change the robotic joint operation in a cordless way. Also, the project will offer a long-term significance in academia, industry and education for Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area, and even the world.
Project Reference No. : C2004-21GF
Project Title : User-Controlled Secure Data Sharing and Analytics with Blockchain and Trusted Computing Technologies
Project Coordinator : Professor XU Jianliang
University : Hong Kong Baptist University
Layman Summary
Recent years have witnessed an increased availability of personal data such as health, financial, and geo-social data. Sharing such data with relevant stakeholders is a prerequisite for unleashing their value. To achieve secure data sharing, most existing systems make use of a centralized solution for storage management and access control. However, centralized solutions have two major issues. First, with the increasing value of data and growing cybersecurity threats, centralized solutions cannot fully address users’ security and privacy concerns. Second, centralized sensitive data are often confined in their premises due to privacy regulations, such as PDPO in Hong Kong, HIPAA in the USA, and GDPR in Europe, thereby limiting their application and causing data silos.
To address these issues, this collaborative research project aims to explore emerging blockchain and trusted computing technologies to enable user-controlled secure data sharing, searches, and analytics. The core idea is for data owners to reclaim control of their personal data while sharing, without relying on any trusted authority. To realize this paradigm, there are several key requirements and challenges: (1) how to securely share data over the blockchain while supporting auditable access and privacy control; (2) how to support advanced search functions over the confidential data with blockchain-enforced access control; and (3) how to design blockchain-based incentive mechanisms for privacy-preserving data analytics. To tackle these challenges, the goals of our research include: (1) proposing an on-chain/off-chain storage model and developing blockchain-based access control and privacy control mechanisms for secure data sharing; (2) developing secure indexing and searching algorithms for authorized rich queries in the blockchain; (3) designing blockchain-based marketplaces and privacy-enhancing techniques for secure data analytics; and (4) developing trusted computing and smart contract technologies to manage access permissions, log data accesses, and incentivize data sharing.
Project Reference No. : C2011-21GF
Project Title : Mass spectrometry-based metabolomics for the investigation of biomarkers in Parkinson's disease
Project Coordinator : Professor CAI Zongwei
University : Hong Kong Baptist University
Layman Summary
Parkinson's disease is one of the most prevalent neurodegenerative disorders. Up to now, no drugs have been proven effective for it. It is crucial to identify novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets for the disease. Metabolites represent the final downstream products of genome and proteome and reflect most closely the operation of biological system. Metabolomics is capable of comprehensive analysis of metabolic profiles, offering valuable clues in the understanding of molecular alterations in various diseases. This project aims to identify dysregulated metabolites associated with Parkinson's disease by using mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. Both plasma and cerebrospinal fluid samples will be subjected to metabolomic analyses to enhance the diagnosis capability of biomarkers. The perturbed metabolites and metabolic pathways will be validated by from proteomics and functional studies by using cell and animal models. The project outcomes are expected to identify novel biomarkers for enhanced diagnosis, pinpoint specific metabolite-protein interaction, and offer information for potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.
Project Reference No. : C4024-21GF
Project Title : A Predict-to-Prescribe Approach to Social Communication Treatment in Chinese Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Project Coordinator : Professor WONG Chun-man Patrick
University : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
An accumulation of research evidence has pointed to parent-implemented communication treatment to be effective in reducing the severity of social communication deficits in preschool children with ASD. Despite even high-quality evidence, real-world translation to clinical practice remains challenging, especially for children from lower-income families, for two reasons. First, treatment outcome is highly variable despite study-level efficacy data, most likely due to unique child and parent factors that make treatment response uneven across individual children. Second, the cost of intervention with the largest effect sizes remains high due to its one-on-one format. With the overarching goal to reduce cost and to increase treatment effectiveness at the individual-child level, our project will address two objectives. We will first develop two options of parent-implemented communication treatment taught by a speech therapist in either an Individual (one-on-one) format or in a Group format (up to 8 families learning together). The Individual format is at least 4 times more expensive than the Group format. We will then evaluate whether different combinations of parent and child behavioral and neural factors determine which format of intervention is likely to be more effective at the individual-child level. It is likely that not all families require the more costly Individual format of intervention. Machine-learning analytics with cross-validation will be used in constructing predictive models of treatment response, which will increase the likelihood of these models being generalizable to new patients. With our track record in conducting research concerning the basic mechanisms of ASD, multi-modal neuroimaging with advanced analytics, RCTs in children with ASD, and language neuroscience research in Chinese-learning children, our transdisciplinary team of clinicians and scientists is in a distinct position to conduct the proposed study. If successful, our study will be among the first example of fulfilling the promise of Precision Medicine in providing guidance to patients and families with developmental disorders about not whether to receive intervention but which option of intervention to receive in the context of multiple options. This predict-to-prescribe approach of ASD intervention will likely lead to a paradigm shift in clinical practice and ultimately result in lowering the overall cost and increasing the effectiveness of intervention for children with ASD as individuals.
Project Reference No. : C4032-21GF
Project Title : Dissecting the Therapeutic Mechanism of an Effective Combination Treatment Targeting Neuromuscular Junction Degeneration and Myosteatosis to Combat Sarcopenia
Project Coordinator : Dr. CHEUNG Wing-hoi
University : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Sarcopenia is an age-related muscle disease characterized by loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength, which causes poor balancing ability and may result in fragility fractures. Its prevalence ranges at 5.3-12.3% in Hong Kong but prevalence rises up to an astonishing 70% in fragility fracture patients. The cause of sarcopenia is multifactorial, where inactivity, fat infiltration (or myosteatosis) and neuromuscular junction degeneration are some potential factors. Current clinical recommendation is physical exercise and taking of protein supplement, yet compliance is not satisfactory. This study aims to investigate the problems of fat infiltration and neuromuscular junction degeneration in sarcopenia and look into the mechanisms of a new combination interventions (vibration treatment + oral supplement of β-hydroxy β-methylbutyric acid or HMB, a leucine metabolite) on treating sarcopenia. Our ultimate goal is to understand the pathogenesis of sarcopenia and sort out a good solution to retard the progression of sarcopenia, reduce its prevalence and improve the quality of life of sarcopenia patients.
Project Reference No. : C4034-21GF
Project Title : Small Data Learning for Alzheimer's Disease: From Digital Biomarker to Personalized Intervention
Project Coordinator : Professor XING Guoliang
University : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Alzheimer's Disease (AD) has become a growing health problem worldwide due to population aging. Early identification of people at-risk of developing AD and timely intervention are crucial because disease-modifying treatment for AD is not available at present. This project will leverage AI and off-the-shelf sensors to capture physiological, behavioral, and lifestyle symptoms of AD in natural home environments, referred to as digital biomarkers, and apply them for early AD detection and personalized intervention.
Specifically, this project aims to develop a new small data learning framework for detecting a variety of AD digital biomarkers in a privacy-preserving and distributed manner, a contrastive learning approach that exploits the fusion of different sensor modalities, a generative adversarial network (GAN) that generates personalized caregiving plans, and an interpretable deep learning framework that can provide professionals and caregivers interpretable and trusted guidelines for AD intervention. Clinical trials will be conducted to validate the proposed technologies. Leveraging on our current collaboration with global industrial/academic partners, our team aims to establish a world-class research center on AI for Alzheimer's to advance the state of the art in research and treatment.
Project Reference No. : C4044-21GF
Project Title : Multi-modal Approaches to Determine Digital Clinical Phenotyping, Novel Proteomic Biomarkers, and Microbiota-host Responses of REM Sleep Behavior Disorder, a Prodromal Stage of Alpha-synucleinopathy Neurodegeneration, in a Prospective Family Cohort
Project Coordinator : Professor WING Yun-kwok
University : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) is a novel and distinct parasomnia that the affected person will act out the dream with frequent sleep-related movements and injuries. The significance of iRBD is not only leading to sleep disturbances, but also signifying an early stage of neurodegeneration of α-synucleinopathy including Parkinson's disease (PD). In addition, our family data suggested that the first-degree relatives of patients with iRBD are already at an even earlier stage of α-synucleinopathy with a spectrum of RBD features and neurodegenerative biomarkers. By studying the controls, high-risk first-degree relatives of iRBD patients, iRBD patients, and PD patients converted from iRBD, this proposed project consists of a continuum spectrum of early stage of α-synucleinopathy, which will facilitate the investigation of etiological risk factors, disease phenotyping, novel biomarkers that are related to disease progression, as well as the pathophysiological mechanism underlying the disease progression from iRBD to PD. In the proposed collaborative research projects, the implement of multimodal measurement of biomarkers, including clinical assessments, digital monitoring, gut microbiota and host-immune responses, as well as plasma proteomics profiling, are expected to competently capture the characteristic of iRBD phenotypes and delineate the dynamic change of biomarkers in this disease continuum. The advanced analytic methods, including machine learning, are expected to identify distinct phenotypes and predict disease progression. The outcome of this project will scientifically enhance the current understanding of the pathophysiology of α-synucleinopathy and have several impacts on the health system, including screening and identifying high-risk individuals, monitoring disease progression, and providing evidence for future neuroprotection trials at an early stage of α-synucleinopathy.
Project Reference No. : C4062-21GF
Project Title : Recurrent First Trimester Miscarriage: Genetic Etiology, Diagnosis and Prevention
Project Coordinator : Professor CHOY Kwong-wai Richard
University : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Recurrent miscarriage is a global health issue, affecting millions of couples across the world. Although non-genetic etiologies of recurrent miscarriage are well defined, the contribution of genetic defects remains elusive. Understanding and pinpointing the underlying genetic defects enable effective and personalized treatment options for the suffering couples and improves the chances of successful pregnancy through assisted reproductive options.
Herein, we aim to investigate and identify the spectrum of a wide range of causative genetic aberrations including aneuploidies, copy number variants, balanced chromosomal abnormalities, and single nucleotide variants. These underlying genetic aberrations of first-trimester recurrent miscarriage are detected using our in-house low-pass whole genome sequencing in a trio-based setting. In addition, we will employ third generation sequencing to further optimize and improve our variant detection bioinformatics algorithms for subsequent analysis in a prospective cohort. Our hypothesis is, through in vitro fertilization and preimplantation genetic testing for the detected genetic aberrations, pregnancy rates will be improved and subsequent miscarriage rates will be reduced. As such, we propose our study in obtaining a genetic diagnosis contributory to recurrent miscarriage enables personalized clinical intervention (selection of genetically unaffected embryos for implantation).
We are confident that the findings of our collaborative study will increase knowledge on the genetic etiologies of recurrent miscarriage and lead to improved treatment strategies.
Project Reference No. : C5044-21GF
Project Title : Development of high-resolution 3D scaffolds with biomimetic triply periodic minimal surface structure for bone tissue repair
Project Coordinator : Dr. ZHAO Xin
University : The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Layman Summary
Surface topology has demonstrated significant influence on regulating stem cell behaviors, functions and regenerating bone tissues. Notably, the hyperboloid structure is one that many species around the globe (e.g., coral calcification, leaves’ photosynthesis, mammalian trabecular bone) have adopted due to the advantages related to their amplified surface area, curvature, and energy dissipation capability. To recapitulate the architectural marvel of the hyperboloid structure, we propose a three-dimensional (3D) Triply Periodic Minimal Surface (TPMS) scaffolds with varying Gaussian curvatures to embody a trabecular bone mimicking hyperboloidal topography. TPMS is a crystallographic symmetric and lattice-based structure in three directions, with excellent surface area, porosity and interconnectivity for both mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) adhesion/migration/differentiation and vascular infiltration, effectively achieving osteogenesis-angiogenesis coupling through activation of several cell signaling pathways. Ultrahigh resolution of 3D scaffolds with TPMS structure can be achieved through digital light processing (DLP) printing of β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) slurry alongside addition of various metal ions for modulation of bone mineralization and covering with therapeutic gas nitric oxide generating coatings for enhanced angiogenesis. The resultant TPMS scaffolds will have (1) large surface area and porosity with excellent interporous connectivity, providing preferential microenvironment for cell adhesion and migration, as well as vascular infiltration; (2) smoothly curved surfaces to eliminate stress concentration, avoiding stress shielding while maintaining the scaffolds’ high mechanical strength; (3) ability to modulate the osteogenesis/angiogenesis of native stem cells via synergistic mechanical stimulation and protein/receptor condensation to activate cell signaling pathways; (4) defined chemical composition with inherent/metabolizable salts without addition of any exogenous pharmaceuticals or fragile growth factors; (5) appropriate curvature for ready extracellular matrix mineralization for enhanced bone regeneration; (6) super large surface area for increased functionalization of bioactive molecules.
The cell-/growth factor-free nature of the TPMS scaffolds will facilitate clinical translation as it is much closer towards a safe and efficient bone graft than implanted alternatives. The successful implementation of the TPMS bone scaffolds will not only benefit patients struggling to recover from long-term bone diseases and fractures, but also initiate the evolution of tissue regeneration concept in biomaterials, i.e., direction of the cell behaviors/functions and tissue formation exclusively through tuning the physical cues, without additional exogenous growth factors, drugs or cytokines. In the long term, commercialization of the research product of this project will also reinforce the status quo of the Greater Bay Area as a technological innovative sector, and alleviate the social problems (e.g., growing population with bone diseases/fractures) arising from the aging population of surrounding regions.
Project Reference No. : C5062-21GF
Project Title : Study of Carbon Sequestration in Hong Kong's Vegetation: from Present to Future Prediction under Climate Change
Project Coordinator : Professor WONG Man-sing Charles
University : The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Layman Summary
Greenhouse gas from human activities is the most significant driver of climate change since the mid-20th century. United Nations and the international communities have set carbon neutrality as the most urgent mission to tackle global climate change. Hong Kong Government has included "Zero-carbon Emissions" as a major vision in the latest "Climate Action Plan 2050". The plan targets to reduce Hong Kong's carbon emissions by 50% before 2035 as compared to the 2005 level, and to achieve carbon neutrality before 2050.
In brief, carbon neutrality is the achievement of balance between carbon emission and carbon sequestration. Currently, most of the actions focus on reducing carbon emission in human activities, while carbon sequestration is also worth noting. Vegetation plays a dominant role in carbon sequestration, it can store carbon by photosynthesis process. Vegetative carbon stock is also a critical indicator of urban climate resilience. In today's climate-changing world, extreme weather such as higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns will affect vegetation productivity and carbon uptake. Thus, it is important to evaluate the current and future carbon sequestration performance of Hong Kong's vegetation under climate change.
How can we estimate and evaluate this performance objectively? Satellite remote sensing technology has demonstrated its ability to improve carbon sequestration assessment. Our study includes five tasks covering data collection, modeling, analysis and policy guidelines. This will help us achieve several proposed objectives for estimating carbon sequestration by vegetation in Hong Kong, from present to future, under climate change scenarios. A comprehensive technical framework will be built for estimating vegetation biomass and carbon sequestration. The framework can be applicable in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, as well as in other regions.
Project Reference No. : C6012-21G
Project Title : Development of a New Generation of Privileged Chiral Catalysts for Asymmetric Synthesis
Project Coordinator : Professor SUN Jianwei
University : The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Layman Summary
Chirality, also called "handedness", is a common phenomenon in nature that describes objects (including molecules) non-superimposable to their mirror images. Many biomolecules, such as DNA, proteins, and carbohydrates, are chiral. The chiral biological environment thus interacts with the two mirror images (i.e., "enantiomers") of a chiral molecule differently. This means the two enantiomers of a drug molecule often have different biological activities. In this case, the selective synthesis of only one of the two enantiomers is required to maximize drug efficacy and minimize side effects. Currently, chiral drugs constitute approximately two thirds of the small-molecule drug market. Therefore, developing new tools for the synthesis of enantiomerically pure molecules is a worthwhile endeavor.
Asymmetric catalysis provides a practical solution to meet the above need. It employs a small amount of chiral catalyst to serves as the "seed" to induce product chirality. Therefore, the catalyst performance is a key consideration in the success of the synthesis process. However, the design of broadly applicable ("privileged") chiral catalysts a challenging task. This project will develop a new generation of privileged chiral catalysts that are not only easily accessible but also expected to have good performance. These new catalysts will be used to catalyze a wide range of reactions that produce useful chiral molecules, such as pharmaceutical intermediates. These catalysts will have great potential to find long-term applications in academic laboratories and various industries.
Project Reference No. : C6032-21GF
Project Title : Robust Infrastructure Planning for Sustainable Water Development in the Greater Bay Area under Demand Uncertainty and Climate Variability
Project Coordinator : Professor LU Mengqian
University : The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Layman Summary
Over the next decades the Greater Bay Area (GBA) will see significant growth that requires new investments to ensure water is available to the right users, at the right time, at the right cost while conserving the ecosystem. On the supply side, infrastructure investments can be in the form of added connectivity or expanded storage that will undoubtedly require heavy investments to ensure the GDP growth planned for the region. On the demand side, there are many possibilities for improvements in the form of periodic allocation of water rights based on economic efficiency, incentive-compatible schemes for water rights trading, the implementation of conservation techniques, and investments in technology for early identification of system failures.
Our proposal aims to support decision-makers by quantifying the benefits of supply infrastructure investment and demand management projects. We focus on benefits rather than costs because we are unlikely to have access to cost data for all possible projects but are confident on being able to quantify their benefits. We do this by developing an infrastructure cost agnostic model of the GBA water network, including supply and demand nodes, their connectivity and existing storage capacities. To make the model useful, we will populate it with supply and demand scenarios based on hydroclimatic and socioeconomic models as well as estimates of shortage and overflow cost rates. The model can then be used with flow allocations and deliveries as decision variables to help classify demand nodes in terms of their stress over time as either acute or chronic and in terms of their intensity as either normal, mild, or severe. Such a diagnostic tool is based on what are known as primal and dual variables aggregated over many scenarios. The models can provide consistent and reliable signals of when and where supply or demand solutions can be of help in mitigating the mismatch between supply and demand. The model can help evaluate the benefits of specific projects such as the connectivity between the East and West rivers. Another use of the model is to quantify risk measures, such as value at risk, that became popular in finance after 2008 and can support robust recommendations. Throughout the project we plan to work closely within our team to populate the scenarios and evaluate the benefits of potential projects. We will also work with key people in government who can benefit from the resulting decision support system.
Project Reference No. : C6034-21GF
Project Title : Axon Regeneration-Mediated Functional Recovery by Regulating Intrinsic Mechanisms and Neuronal Activity
Project Coordinator : Professor LIU Kai
University : The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Layman Summary
Neurotrauma such as brain or spinal cord injury leads to devastating and persistent neurological deficits. One of the major reasons for the limited functional recovery is the lack of successful axonal regeneration and rewiring. In this proposal, we aim to use a newly-established intracranial optic tract lesion model to study the functional reconnection. With a novel combination strategy to boost the intrinsic growth capacity of retinal ganglion cells, we will drive retinal axons to regenerate across the optic tract lesion site, reinnervate the target neurons in the brain, and restore the light reflex. Our goal is to enhance the functional recovery and understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the robust axon regeneration and functional rewiring. Successful completion of this project will establish strategies to rebuild disconnected neural circuits after injuries within the brain, and help our understanding on the fundamental mechanisms that mediate functional reconnection after central nervous system injuries.
Project Reference No. : C7004-21GF
Project Title : Characterization of ancient lake basins on Mars using advanced topographic modelling and innovative spectroscopic techniques
Project Coordinator : Dr. MICHALSKI Joseph Ryan
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Mars is a hyperarid, frozen desert planet today, but in the distant past, the climate was warm enough to allow for lakes to form. Satellite remote sensing of the martian surface has revealed 100s of lake basins, now dry, as evidence of the warmer, wetter and possibly habitable past. How warm was Mars three to four billion years ago? What was the composition of the atmosphere? How much water was present and how long did it last? Were the conditions favorable for the origin of microbial life on Mars? Geologists know from studies of lakes on Earth that they are some of the most valuable recorders of past climate, and that lake environments contain nutrients and energy sources to sustain huge amounts of biomass and complex microbial ecosystems. Geological deposits of lakes on Mars are therefore invaluable windows into ancient climate and possible life, which is why they are the top targets for high-profile landed missions and future sample return. This project is a systematic analysis of ancient lake basins on Mars using multiple types of remote sensing data. Our team contains a range of complimentary expertise in remote sensing of lakes on Earth, remote sensing of Mars, and applications of innovative techniques to remote sensing data analysis, including machine learning and artificial intelligence. We will create new, higher resolution topographic maps of dry martian lake basins in order to evaluate ancient shorelines, water volumes and lake environments. We will also carry out remote sensing of arctic lakes on Earth as a comparison to small lake basins on Mars, and translate that information to help discover small, ice-related lakes on Mars by empirical means and automated detection. We will develop new software tools to extract mineralogical information from hyperspectral infrared remote sensing data, creating a global picture of the mineralogy and geochemistry of martian lakes. The aim of this integrated, global, innovative approach is to discover 100s or 1000s of small lake deposits on Mars, to reveal new insights into the connections between lake mineralogy and climate, and to shed new light on the implications of lake deposits for life on Mars. Further, the project helps position Hong Kong within space exploration strategy in China and abroad.
Project Reference No. : C7012-21GF
Project Title : Transport and dynamics of correlated quantum matter
Project Coordinator : Professor SHEN Shunqing
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Dynamics and transport properties of interacting many-body physics constitute one of the most important problems in modern condensed matter physics. Conventional theories on transport such as Boltzmann equations rely on being able to describe the system as a congregation of weakly interacting particles. However, when interaction becomes very strong, as in the case of materials that are close to their quantum critical points or unitary Fermi gas, the quasi-particles are presumably not well defined and a reliable theoretical framework for transport is missing. The topology of the band structure in solids also strongly modifies the usual transport equations and leads to novel transport effects. In some correlated quantum matter, topologically nontrivial low-energy excitations become the main carriers for charge, spin and heat transport, giving rise to new phenomena. Another class of systems that cannot be captured by the conventional Boltzmann equation approach are those far from thermal equilibrium. In particular, novel nonequilibrium phases of matter such as many-body localization, discrete time crystals, and quantum many-body scar states have emerged in recent years as promising platforms for quantum control and quantum simulation purposes. In particular, the memory of the initial state in such systems may be retained for an extended period, making them useful for quantum information storage applications. The dynamic and transport properties of quantum systems determine potential applications of quantum materials in the future.
The objectives of the project are (1) to investigate the transport and dynamics in which band topology plays a crucial role; (2) to investigate the transport and dynamics in strongly interacting and correlated systems; and (3) to develop and apply new numerical techniques for calculating transport and dynamic properties in the correlated quantum systems. The team are expected to contribute new understandings of various transport and dynamic phenomena, to explore new effects and novel states of matter in condensed matter and cold atom systems, to form a strong team at the forefront in the proposed field with an impact on the international community, and to train Ph. D students who could be contributing as researchers in academia or industry and become productive members of the society. In the long term, it is expected that the research work would possibly help the area of identifying and understanding correlated quantum materials to realize application in industry such as topological electronic devices and quantum computation qubits.
Project Reference No. : C7021-21GF
Project Title : 3D/4D bioprinting liver cancer immune microenvironment for precision oncology
Project Coordinator : Professor MAN Kwan Nancy
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Immunotherapy provides a new option for the liver cancer patients in addition to surgical treatments, local and systemic chemotherapies, and other ablation modalities. Recently, several immune checkpoint blockades have been applied for liver cancer patients. However, the therapeutic benefit is limited due to the low response rate (10-20%). Therefore, understanding the precise mechanisms of tumor immune evasion, especially the immune regulation in tumor microenvironment, will be critical for extending the impact of immunotherapy for liver cancer patients. During the last decade, we have made much efforts to explore the mechanisms of liver tumor microenvironment. With our experience for establishing the world first ceramic 4D printing system, we have also built up an advanced multifunctional 3D/4D bioprinting platform with the combination of different printing methods. Therefore, we would like to design and establish the in vitro 3D bioprinted liver cancer immune system to (1) explore the precise mechanisms of the interactions among tumor cells and immune cells; (2) to discover the potential targets to enhance or sensitize immune therapy; and (3) identify biomarkers to predict immune response. The proposed bioprinted tumor microenvironment systems will not only overcome the limitation of patient-derived xenograft mouse model and organoids, which probably lacking human living immune cells in the cancer microenvironment, but also largely reduce the laboratory animal usage. The application of the proposed research will significantly facilitate the investigation of the complexity of tumor immune microenvironment and development of the novel therapeutics for liver cancer patients.
Project Reference No. : C7041-21GF
Project Title : Turning 2060 Carbon Neutrality into Reality: a cross-disciplinary study of air pollution and health cobenefits of climate change mitigation of the Guangdong-Hong Kong- Macau Greater Bay
Project Coordinator : Professor REN Chao
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
The GBA is now the largest fast-developing economic and industrial region in China. Provincial and municipal governments of the GBA pledge to meet the carbon neutrality (CN) target by 2060 set by the central government of China. However, concrete mitigation measures and pathways to achieve this ambitious target have yet to be made. And their potential impact on future air quality, health and socio-economy are unknown. The proposed project aims to fill the gap and to conduct a cross-disciplinary study to explore the potential mitigation pathways and assess the consequential impacts in the GBA for developing the optimised climate policy. The proposed study will also generate a future picture of climate change mitigation and its impact on health and socioeconomics of 2030-2060, aiding the development of optimised climate change mitigation policy and a collaborative management plan on air quality control of the GBA.
Project Reference No. : C7074-21GF
Project Title : Unveiling neural activities through spatiotemporally optimized multiphoton (STOMP) microscopy
Project Coordinator : Professor WONG Kin-yip Kenneth
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Apart from structural imaging, in-depth kilohertz (kHz) frame rate live monitoring of neural activity at high spatiotemporal resolution holds the key to uncovering the fundamental mechanism of both normal brain functions and pathological progression in psychiatric diseases. Capability of performing such imaging would enhance our fundamental understanding by observing neural dynamics in multiple layers, which is currently confined to relatively superficial neurons owing to the limit of light, especially the strong optical scattering and absorption by biological tissues. Although two-photon microscopy (2PM) has been extensively employed in optical voltage imaging for deeper parts of intact tissue, it still remains an open problem owing to fundamental challenges.
We will develop an integrated and modularized multiphoton (aka STOMP) microscopy platform that enable us to capture an unprecedented set of deep and functional animal brain imaging data in an ultrafast manner. These advancements will uniquely allow ultradeep and ultrafast imaging of brain tissues, to enhance our understanding of fundamental neuroscience and shed new mechanistic insights into psychiatric disease processes.
Project Reference No. : C7075-21GF
Project Title : Functional Supramolecular and Metallosupramolecular Materials and Biomaterials – From Synthetic Challenges To Controlled Supramolecular Assembly, Functions and Application Studies
Project Coordinator : Professor YAM Wing-wah Vivian
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
In the macroscopic world of condensed matters, molecules exist in ensembles and are held together by intermolecular forces. The way how they pack or organize together will have an influence on their properties and functions. This is governed by supramolecular chemistry-chemistry beyond the molecule. Given its importance and relevance to the diverse arrays of examples related to materials and biological systems, an advancement of our understanding in the precise control of supramolecular assemblies and their structure-property-function relationships represents one of the Holy Grails in advanced materials and biomaterials research. This CRF proposal brings together researchers of synergistic expertise to tackle major challenges in the control and manipulation of molecules and their assembly through the understanding and manipulation of intermolecular forces and supramolecular interactions, to create nanoscale architectures in a controllable manner to give desirable functions, and to provide insights into molecular design principles and to apply them in selected proof-of-concept application studies, with a focus on stimuli-responsive functions in advanced materials & biomaterials research, especially stimuli-responsive supramolecular materials and biomaterials in materials science, and optical sensing, cell imaging, bio-triggers and bio-interface mimics. By synergistic rational design and synthetic strategies, innovative classes of supramolecular and metallosupramolecular materials and biomaterials based on organic molecules, polymers, mechanically interlocked molecules, transition metal complexes, metal-organic cages, bioinspired molecules, and their conjugate and hybrid building blocks will be generated. Manipulation of intermolecular forces and supramolecular interactions as well as mechanistic studies of the assembly processes will be made. Incorporation of stimuli-responsive functionalities into the supramolecular building blocks and their conjugates and hybrids will be made to generate innovative classes of stimuli-responsive functional supramolecular and metallosupramolecular materials and biomaterials. Their functional properties will be studied. Results will then be used to generate structure-property-function relationships and to provide design strategies and guiding principles for supramolecular assembly. The potential of these functional supramolecular and metallosupramolecular materials and biomaterials in various functions and applications will be explored. Through such integrated collaboration, new synergy will be developed and new research dimensions realized; research efforts and strengths in the area will also be coordinated and cross-fertilized to promote the visibility of Hong Kong as a world-recognized area of strengths in functional supramolecular and metallosupramolecular materials and biomaterials research. All-rounded training and education of young researchers and research postgraduates as well as nurturing of next-generation leading academics and scientists in functional supramolecular and metallosupramolecular materials and biomaterials research will be made.
Project Reference No. : C7082-21GF
Project Title : Active fluid for enhanced thermal transport and energy harvesting
Project Coordinator : Dr. TANG Jinyao
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Active matter is a new kind of material that its components are out-of-equilibrium system and constantly generate propulsion by consume energy. The active matter system have many novel physical properties that cannot be realized in traditional materials. In this research, we target to formulate new artificial active matter into active fluid and study its thermal and mass transport properties. We will also explore how to apply this new material into thermal transport and energy recovery application.
CRF 2021/22 Collaborative Research Equipment Grant (CREG) ProposalsProject Reference No. : C1015-21EF
Project Title : An ultrafast spectroscopy and super-resolution microscope facility for functional photonics and materials research
Project Coordinator : Dr. LEI Dangyuan
University : City University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Understanding the electronic, optical and vibrational properties of nanoscale materials and structures calls for the development of optical imaging and spectroscopy techniques having both nanoscale-spatial and fs-temporal resolutions. In this project, the research team will work together to set up the first ultrafast time-resolved spectroscopy and super-resolution imaging facility in Hong Kong for functional photonics and materials research as well as optical biosensing and bioimaging studies. The facility is based on an aperture-less near-field optical microscope that can break the Abbe's diffraction limit by combining atomic force microscopy with various optical modules to achieve nanoscale optical imaging and spectroscopic capabilities. It can perform (1) optical near-field mapping and spectroscopy from visible to infrared all at the spatial resolution down to 10 nm and (2) ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy at the same spatial resolution, providing tremendous collaboration opportunities among the local institutions and relevant R&D sectors in Hong Kong.
Project Reference No. : C4002-21EF
Project Title : The First Integrated State-of-the-Art Live Cell Imaging Platforms to Timely Promote Interdisciplinary and Advanced Life Sciences Research in Hong Kong and Beyond
Project Coordinator : Professor JIANG Liwen
University : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
We have recently established several advanced EM-based imaging platforms for promoting interdisciplinary life science research in Hong Kong. To overcome their major limitations of inability for live-cell imaging of cellular dynamics and mechanisms, and to complement the EM-based data with the wealth of information, here we aim to establish the first integrated state-of-the-art live-cell imaging platforms, allowing (1) Live-cell multi-color imaging with super-resolution of 40-100 nm; (2) Super-speed, low phototoxicity for high-resolution and long-hour 4D imaging analysis; (3) In-depth imaging of tissues and organs; and (4) Surface imaging of molecular dynamics in endocytosis and exocytosis. We will timely integrate the new advanced live-cell imaging platform together with the existing EM-based platforms to promote inter/multidisciplinary LSR and Research Excellence in Hong Kong and beyond. Our LSR will also contribute greatly to the Education and Training of young scientists.
Project Reference No. : C4050-21EF
Project Title : A Sub-10-nm Resolution Electron-Beam Lithography System for Cross-disciplinary Nanomaterial and Nanodevice Research
Project Coordinator : Professor SUN Xiankai
University : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
In this project, we will acquire and install a sub-10-nm resolution electron-beam lithography system to boost the nanofabrication capability of Hong Kong institutions to international standard. This system is the world's most advanced system for generating patterns with sub-10-nm resolution and accuracy on a wafer scale. The system covers a wide range of leading-edge applications for direct-write nanolithography, industrial R&D, and batch production in every kind of nanofabrication facility. This new equipment together with other existing equipment in the Micro- and Nano-Fabrication Laboratory at CUHK will serve to position Hong Kong academics at the forefront of nanomaterial and nanodevice research, stimulating research initiatives and collaborations within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.
Project Reference No. : C5036-21EF
Project Title : High performance deep learning clusters for big data analytics
Project Coordinator : Professor CHEN Xiaojun
University : The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Layman Summary
This project is to provide high performance deep learning clusters for development of advanced interdisciplinary research in the areas including molecular computing, medical imaging analysis, digital economy and smart cities. The proposed equipment will be housed in the University Research Facility in Big Data Analytics (UBDA) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and has the new generation GPU solvers. Researchers from various faculties in local universities can use the new equipment on the UBDA platform to conduct cutting-edge research on the theory and applications of the interplay of deep neural networks, optimization algorithms, parallel and distributed computing for the new generation of big data in Hong Kong. Fast algorithms, new computing technologies and efficient toolboxes for big data analytics will be developed by using the new equipment on the UBDA platform and new open data sources in Hong Kong and the world. This project has a strong team with leading researchers in optimization, computer science, molecular computing, medical imaging, digital economy and smart cities from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Baptist University. It would significantly enhance collaboration of researchers from different institutes for big data analytics in science, engineering, finance, health and other fields in Hong Kong.
Project Reference No. : C5078-21EF
Project Title : An upright multiphoton microscope for intravital imaging and optogenetic studies
Project Coordinator : Professor YANG Mo
University : The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Layman Summary
Advancements in fluorescence microscopy in the past few decades have enabled scientists to visualise biological specimens in great detail, and have led to important biomedical discoveries that contribute to the development of modern medicine. Biological specimens that are labelled with fluorescent dyes or proteins have long been observed with wide-field fluorescence microscopy or laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM). In the latter, the presence of a pinhole in the light path can create thin optical sections with reasonably good image resolution. However, the use of excitation laser in the visible range offers rather poor penetration power into biological tissue due to light scattering, limiting the depth of imaging using LSCM. The introduction of multiphoton microscopy (MPM) comes around such problem by using pulsed lasers with emission in the far-red or infrared range, enabling much deeper penetration into biological tissue, and allowing researchers to make observations of structures or even live and dynamic biological events at their most native states.
The multiphoton microscope being proposed is of an upright configuration, allowing researchers to directly image living small animals, organ explants, as well as other relatively large biological specimens. Researchers will be able to perform longitudinal imaging experiments using the same batch of research animals at various time points over periods of days or even weeks. The effects of potential drugs, for example, can be examined in such manner in a preclinical study. On the other hand, the pulsed laser in the proposed system is equipped with a second output for imaging or photo-excitation. The latter would enable optogenetic experiments that allow researchers to turn certain genes on and off with lights.
The proposed upright multiphoton microscope will be an essential piece of equipment at the Animal Imaging Centre (AIC) of the University Research Facility in Life Sciences (ULS), a one-stop animal imaging facility that is open to PolyU researchers as well as external users. Research on degenerative diseases, such the Alzheimer's disease and retinal degeneration, often involve the use of transgenic animal models in combination with intravital imaging and optogenetic techniques, which cannot be achieved without the proposed system. The addition of the proposed system to the AIC will substantially improve the quality of animal studies being carried out by the project team in a timely manner, and will most likely lead to high-impact research publications and other longer-term benefits to the society as a whole.
Project Reference No. : C5081-21EF
Project Title : Advanced Fourier-transform Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectrometer for Molecular and Nano Functional Materials Research
Project Coordinator : Professor WONG Wai-yeung Raymond
University : The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Layman Summary
Fourier-transform electron paramagnetic resonance (FT-EPR) spectroscopy can determine the local and microenvironment of paramagnetic spin-active nuclei, and more importantly the electronic communication between these entities within small distances. It is becoming a highly important characterization techniques for emerging molecular and nano functional materials in various research areas, catalysis, battery electrodes, molecular machines, protein-protein recognition, methodology of electron-electron distance measurements, hydrogen storage, transparent conductors, and quantum computing, to name but a few. As a result, there is a huge demand, as demonstrated by our broad range of co-PIs and research projects, to establish a modern FT-EPR facility in Hong Kong.
The overarching objective of this project is to address this immediate need, to establish the first FT-EPR facility that can expand the strength of material characterization for emerging molecular and nano functional materials, and to eventually promote multidisciplinary research in Hong Kong through collaborations with leading experts in the fields. Even though there have been pioneering works utilizing FT-EPR in institutions like Oxford University, MIT and ETH Zurich, a customized FT-EPR combining all these techniques has not yet been available in Hong Kong and even in mainland China. Setting up this unique FT-EPR facility will substantially expand the breadth and depth of materials that can be studied, and grant Hong Kong a leading advantage to lead research and development on emerging molecular and nano functional materials. Herein, we propose to acquire an advanced FT-EPR system with customized experimental features which can aid our team of researchers within the Hong Kong scientific community to achieve high impact research. We also envision that the industry in Hong Kong will be a major beneficiary of this facility where many of their long-standing puzzles can be resolved.
Project Reference No. : C6001-21EF
Project Title : In situ investigation of cellular ultrastructures and biological macromolecules using correlative light and electron microscopy and cryo-electron tomography
Project Coordinator : Professor DANG Shangyu
University : The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Layman Summary
Cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) is an advanced imaging technique that allows the three-dimensional visualization of biological specimens, including tissues, cells, bio-macromolecules, as well as the interaction among them. The great ability of cryo-ET to solve structures at sub-nanometer resolution offers researchers the chance to seek solutions for problems such as significant public health crises and to understand the fundamental mechanism of different diseases.
Preparation of a specimen suitable for cryo-ET requires specific sample thinning methods, including plunge-freezing, cryo-focused ion beam milling combined with scanning electron microscope (cryo-FIB/SEM) imaging, high pressure freezing (HPF) and cryo-sectioning. On the basis of the well-established Biological Cryo-EM Center at HKUST, we propose to further strengthen cryo-ET direction by requesting several key equipment, which is critical for high-quality cryo-sample preparation.
The upgraded Biological Cryo-EM Center at HKUST will provide almost all the equipment required for single-particle cryo-EM and cryo-ET studies, providing excellent service to support local scientists in their endeavors to answer important scientific questions, with the ultimate goal of benefiting the Hong Kong community at large. Furthermore, the state-of-the-art cryo-EM facility will provide an excellent environment for training junior researchers and students through collaborative projects and activities, which will benefit both the local scientific community and pharmaceutical companies.
Project Reference No. : C4026-21GF
Project Title : Minimally Contiguous Intubation and Tracheostomy for Severe COVID-19 Patients with Teleoperated Endotracheal cum Percutaneous Dual Robotic Modules and Multi-Modality Guidance
Project Coordinator : Professor REN Hongliang
University : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
COVID-19 pandemic brought millions of mortalities worldwide. Even various vaccination schemes are available, it is still a global concern for its quick mutating virus. Although personal protective equipment and negative pressure can be used, the donning or doffing of PPE is time-consuming and still imposes contamination risks. Patients require tracheal intubation to provide oxygen, which causes aerosolization of virus particles, imposing great risks of viral transmission. Pre-hospital tracheal intubations have a low first attempt success rate, and false tract insertions cause trauma and complicated mitigations. Consequently, the area contaminated by infectious patients from aerosol-generating procedures endangers clinicians. Therefore, preventing the transmission of respiratory infectious diseases is an urgent need during airway procedures involving direct patient contacts. Incorporating robotic teleoperation can execute the most contiguous steps and minimize the need for bedside staff deployment. This multidisciplinary collaborative research will develop core enabling capabilities, including new endotracheal intubation mechanisms, real-time identification of tracheal rings, visual perception and guidance to avoid false tract insertion. The proposed system can lower the possibilities of infection to the healthcare professional while performing the procedure. Further, the robotic process eases the burden and workload on the doctors. Since the sensor information of the robotic system during an intubation process can be reproduced accurately, it can also be used as a teaching aid for medical trainees, with a shallow learning curve while creating a larger pool of qualified surgeons to perform the procedure. It also reduces the reliance on experienced surgeons and enables them to focus on more complicated procedures.
Project Reference No. : C4061-21GF
Project Title : Neuropsychiatric "Long-COVID" in Adult Patients
Project Coordinator : Dr. CHAU Wai-ho Steven
University : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
"Long-COVID", a term referring to the prolonged health effects of SARS-CoV-2 virus infections, has gained increasing prominence in the field of science and public health. Accumulating evidence has confirmed that a substantial proportion of COVID-19 patients suffer from lingering symptoms beyond the first few months after being infected. Neurological and psychiatric complaints, including depressive and anxiety symptoms, sleep disturbance, cognitive complaints, loss of smell, and chronic fatigue are among the most commonly experienced "Long-COVID" symptoms. Recent data pointing to the neurodegenerative risk of COVID-19 patients is particularly concerning. Given the available evidence from COVID-19 patients, the problem of ‘neuropsychiatric “long-COVID” can be of enormous significance to the global healthcare burden. Thus, clarifying the prevalence and nature of ‘neuropsychiatric “long-COVID” is essential to the preparations necessary for a brewing mental health crisis, as well as preparedness planning in anticipation of future novel coronavirus outbreaks. This proposed multi-disciplinary series of studies covers epidemiological, clinical and neuroscientific inquiries. By combining data from an online survey with electronic health records integrated from a large sample, as well as deep phenotyping using clinical, cognitive and brain imaging techniques from selected subgroups using advanced machine learning techniques, this study series aims to fill in the important knowledge gaps regarding ‘neuropsychiatric “long-COVID”. Ultimately, we aim to examine the nature and magnitude of “neuropsychiatric “long-COVID”, as well as deliver an online assessment platform that can facilitate the rapid detection of ‘neuropsychiatric “long-COVID” syndrome’.
Project Reference No. : C4072-21GF
Project Title : High-precision and Privacy-preserving Indoor Social Contact Tracking Technologies for Infectious Disease Transmission Modeling and Control
Project Coordinator : Professor XING Guoliang
University : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Social contact tracking is of vital importance for prediction and control of infectious disease. Existing methods for relating social contacts with modelling infectious disease transmission can’t provide fine-grained infectious prediction due to lack of high-precision contact data, especially in indoor environments. This project aims to develop highly effective technologies that can be deployed rapidly and achieve accurate in-building social contact tracking. The outcomes of this project will also enable high-precision transmission modeling and building/community-scale epidemic control policies. The results of this project will have important impact on COVID-19 and other infectious disease management in Hong Kong and beyond.
Specifically, the objectives of this project include 1) Design and implementation of SocialPal - the first secure hardware device that integrates Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) radio and motion sensors for accurate social contact tracking in indoor environments; 2) a building-scale social contact tracking system based on machine learning algorithms that can achieve high accuracy for a large number of users simultaneously; 3) a secure social contact trace query system that offers a flexible privacy protection policy jointly controlled by user, building management and government health authority; 4) fine-grained building/community-scale epidemic models and infection control policies that are derived from indoor social contact traces, which can help to assess outbreak risks and minimize the impact on economic activities within a community.
Project Reference No. : C5024-21GF
Project Title : Is the usual social distance sufficient to avoid airborne infection of expiratory droplets in indoor environments?
Project Coordinator : Professor GUO Hai
University : The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Layman Summary
As airborne transmission of expiratory droplets is one of the important pathways for viral respiratory diseases including the recent pandemic COVID-19 to infect healthy people, it is extremely important to explore and understand the detailed mechanisms of virus spread through airborne expiratory droplets. To reduce the risk of exposure to viral respiratory diseases, the World Health Organization recommends main measures, namely hand hygiene, social distancing, and wearing masks. Among the recommended measures, there is a hot debate about social distancing related to the exposure risk, especially in indoor environments. Through expiratory activities, airborne virus-laden droplets may spread over long distances, such as tens of meters in indoor environments, and remain in the air for a long time, making it an important route of exposure. Unfortunately, the scientific evidence on many public health policies regarding social distancing is still fragmentary. The public has only a rudimentary understanding of airborne transmission of viral respiratory diseases and proper social distancing. To address the concern of “whether the usual social distance is sufficient to avoid airborne infection of expiratory droplets in indoor environments”, this project will use systematic, multidisciplinary experimental, theoretical and modelling approaches. The spatiotemporal variations of size distributions, velocity vector fields and airborne dynamics of expiratory droplets generated from people infected with Influenza A or B, and the quantities of influenza virus at different distances from the test subjects will be firstly measured using a suite of the state-of-the-art instruments and methods. Bacteriophage phi 6 will then be used as a surrogate of coronavirus and other human pathogenic enveloped viruses to investigate the survivability and number of viruses in size-resolved droplets at different time and locations from the release point under different environmental conditions (e.g. temperature and relative humidity) with the aid of cultivation method and RT-qPCR technique. Lastly, a versatile model of whole-range airborne transmission will be developed and validated with experimental data to predict the airborne transmission of virus-laden expiratory droplets and the risk of exposure to viable viruses. Different from previous models, more parameters will be integrated, especially including survivability and number of viruses in size-resolved droplets at various distances and time, and impact of droplet concentration on the drag force on droplets under different environmental conditions, into the model for more realistic simulations. The outcomes of the project will be the knowledge necessary to determine proper social distancing in various indoor environments, which will contribute to the control of respiratory infectious diseases.
Project Reference No. : C5048-21GF
Project Title : The Effect of Distance Design Collaboration Necessitated by COVID-19 on Brain Synchronicity in Teams Compared to Co-Located Design Collaboration
Project Coordinator : Dr. SHIH Yi-teng
University : The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Layman Summary
COVID-19 has changed the way people communicate and interact with others, thus bringing unique challenges to team design collaborations. Innovation, collaboration and creativity are important drivers of economic growth and social progress. Various design collaborations are essential for a successful product on the market. Because it is widely believed that a group of people can work together to solve complex problems that they cannot solve as individuals. This project aims to explore the effect of distance design collaboration necessitated by COVID-19 on brain synchronicity in teams compared to co-located design collaboration. Furthermore, we question whether the use of distance design collaboration would affect the design outcomes. The project findings are expected to contribute to both academia and industry.
Project Reference No. : C5079-21GF
Project Title : Spatiotemporal prediction and real-time early warning of COVID-19 onset risk
Project Coordinator : Professor SHI Wenzhong
University : The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Layman Summary
Even with public health measures and vaccines, it is likely that COVID-19 will not be eradicated in the near future, but, rather, evolve into a seasonal and endemic disease. Long-term control measures of COVID-19, albeit necessary, leads to great socioeconomic cost and burden to the healthcare system globally. This project aims to develop a series of methods for predicting the onset risk of COVID-19 symptoms (e.g., fever and cough) in space and time at a fine scale (i.e., within a city). The predictions are anticipated to help formulate more precise anti-epidemic measures, hence supporting lower-cost and more effective long-term control of COVID-19 and potential future epidemics. To achieve high prediction accuracy, the methods will incorporate fine-scale transmissibility and other epidemiologic features of different SARS-CoV-2 variants. Rapid whole-genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis will be used to determine the importation and local transmission of different SARS-CoV-2 variants. The impacts of fine-scale urban characteristics and social contacts on COVIS-19 transmission will also be modelled. A mobile application system will be developed to deliver the risk predictions and send active real-time early warning of high-risk areas or routes, thereby helping the public better protect their health.
Project Reference No. : C6020-21GF
Project Title : Alleviation of supply shortage and resource allocation inefficiencies during the pandemic: product standards, asymmetric information, and bargaining power
Project Coordinator : Professor CHEN Ying-ju
University : The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Layman Summary
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have witnessed supply shortages of critical health care supplies, including ventilators, ICUs, test-kit reagents, and personal protective equipment (PPE), such as gowns, gloves, and masks. The recent rise in COVID-19 cases across the globe has led to a skyrocketing demand for these health care supplies. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), respiratory protective devices such as face masks are designed to achieve a very close facial fit and very efficient airborne particle filtration. As a result of the dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases across countries, the demand for face masks has risen abruptly, as government officials continue to promote the wearing of face coverings as an effective method to prevent the spread of disease. Moreover, raw materials for producing surgical/N95 masks, such as meltblown nonwoven fabric, have become scarce as demand continues to surge.
The proposed project tackles the supply shortage in two stages. On the supply side, we examine how various policies (e.g., the cross-standard substitution policy) affect the PPE supply, taking into account supplier incentives to produce and distribute across markets. On the allocation side, given the supply shortage, governments, hospitals and key raw material providers worldwide must ration scarce medical resource efficiently to improve social welfare. We study how scarce resources should be allocated among multiple agents in the presence of inevitable factors (such as information asymmetry and bargaining powers). The study in the second stage will endogenize the market demand, which can be fed back to the first stage and reversely affect supplier incentives to produce and distribute.
Project Reference No. : C6036-21GF
Project Title : From Structural to Genomic Biology: A Multi-scale Approach Tightly Integrating Structural Biology and Novel Genomics Platform to Quantitatively Analyze the Transcription and its Regulation of SARS-CoV-2 Viral RNA Polymerase
Project Coordinator : Dr. CHEUNG Pak-hang Peter
University : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
There is currently no effective treatment for SARS-CoV-2. The replication/transcription complex (RTC) contains the core enzyme RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), a potential drug target. Thus, it is critical to understand the structural basis of RdRp transcription of the viral genome and proofreading and the mechanism by which viral regulatory sequences regulate viral RdRp transcription. We will combine genomics, enzymology, and structural biology to bridge the knowledge gap regarding how viral regulatory sequences and nucleotide analogues targeting the viral RdRp affect polymerase structural dynamics and gene transcription.
On a genome-wide scale, we will elucidate RdRP's mechanisms for transcription regulation by developing a novel genomics platform. On an enzymatic level, we propose to reveal the molecular mechanisms by which SARS-CoV-2 RdRp performs its nucleotide addition cycle (NAC) during viral replication by combining single-molecule optical tweezer assays with Cryo-EM to link function to structure by examining the structural movements of individual RdRp molecules along with the RNA template. On the antiviral level, the exonuclease subunit (ExoN) can remove inhibitors such as nucleotide analogues and natural NTP that have been mis-incorporated, thus posing challenges to developing antivirals targeting the viral RdRP. We will elucidate the chemical properties of how a nucleotide analogue can be incorporated into nascent RNA, inhibit RdRp elongation, and evade proofreading. Results can help identify and optimize novel antivirals.
By utilizing a tightly integrated genomics, molecular, and functional platform, we will elucidate the molecular basis and regulation of SARS-CoV-2 transcription, as well as how such critical processes can be perturbed by means of antiviral therapies.
Project Reference No. : C7042-21GF
Project Title : Organoid-based investigations of COVID-19: Assess infectivity of mutant viruses, Evaluate vaccine efficacy and Explore disease pathogenesis
Project Coordinator : Dr. ZHOU Jie
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has evolved into a global crisis. This proposal is based on the human airway organoids and bat intestinal organoids established in our lab and our recent discoveries of SARS-CoV-2 infection in human and bat organoids. We hypothesize that the airway organoids, a robust experimental model of the human airway epithelium, can be utilized as a human avatar to evaluate the infectivity of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants, assess the efficacy of post-vaccination sera against the variants and explore the pathogenesis of COVID-19. We propose focused and comprehensive studies with four primary objectives. 1) characterize SARS-CoV-2 infection in the airway organoids. 2) Evaluate the infectivity of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and the effect of viral genome mutations on viral fitness in the airway organoids. 3) Develop the airway organoids into a pre-clinical model system to evaluate the efficacy of post-vaccination sera and engineered antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and variants. 4) Dissect cellular response in human and bat organoids to identify the mechanisms of viral pathogenesis in humans versus bat asymptomatically hosting viruses.
The proposed studies will advance the field by developing novel organoid models for studying virus-host interaction. In addition, the findings and knowledge derived from this project will have important implications for halting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Project Reference No. : C7055-21GF
Project Title : Effectiveness and Cost-effectiveness of Technology-enriched Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (teleCST) and Carer Support
Project Coordinator : Dr. WONG Hoi-yan Gloria
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Hong Kong is among the first places in the world preparing for a "post-COVID-19 era" – with lessons learned to protect vulnerable groups and mitigate mental health consequences. People living with dementia are vulnerable, with higher risks of infection and death, disrupted services, and deteriorating symptoms during the pandemic. Carers therefore also suffer. Infection control measures will remain necessary in this vulnerable population, which may affect person-centred engagement – a key element in existing evidence-based interventions. Initial experience suggests information and communication technology (ICT)-enriched interventions can be alternative protection measures, while potentially advancing practice and knowledge. Through three inter-connected studies, we will refine, evaluate, and further enhance an ICT-delivered intervention package for people living with dementia and their families. The interventions are based on existing evidence-based person-centred care traditionally delivered in-person: group Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST) for people living with dementia and a multicomponent support programme for family carers.
Study 1 is a gerontechnology participatory research: 15 persons living with dementia, 15 family carers, and 15 service providers with experience of ICT-enabled interventions will participate as our research partners to refine an intervention prototype, which consists of a 7-week ICT-enabled CST (hereafter "teleCST") followed by a 6-month ICT-enabled multicomponent carer support programme.
Study 2 compares these interventions with in-person interventions, to see if they can achieve the same effects in enhancing functioning and wellbeing, and at what costs. We will randomly assign 156 dyads of people living with dementia and carers to four groups: (A) "teleCST" followed by in-person carer support programme; (B) in-person CST followed by in-person carer support programme; (C) teleCST followed by ICT-enabled carer support programme; and (D) in-person CST, followed by ICT-enabled carer support programme. We will measure outcomes at baseline, 7 weeks, and 6 months. This will allow studying the two intervention components (CST, carer support programme) separately, and in combination.
Study 3 aims to advance person-centred care making use of ICT. We will analysis randomly sampled video clips during teleCST sessions using machine learning methods, to identify person-centred engagement elements that promote communication, interaction, and predict better treatment outcomes (cognitive functioning, wellbeing).
Results from these studies will be relevant to local and overseas interventionists, service planners, policymakers, and researchers in the field of non-pharmacological interventions for dementia. Evidence on effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of ICT-enriched service will be relevant beyond the pandemic, as a potential solution to service accessibility for 50 million people living with dementia globally.
Project Reference No. : C7060-21GF
Project Title : Modeling severe COVID-19 in golden Syrian hamsters
Project Coordinator : Dr. CHAN Fuk-woo Jasper
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
The clinical severity of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) ranges from asymptomatic infection to fatal disease. COVID-19 is usually mild in children and immunocompetent adults, but severe infection in immunocompromised and elderly patients may be associated with a much higher mortality rate. Patients with severe COVID-19 may develop acute respiratory distress syndrome, multi-organ dysfunction syndrome, and other extrapulmonary disease manifestations. Moreover, it has been increasingly recognized that among patients with non-fatal COVID-19, some may develop “long COVID” which is characterized by persistent symptoms of COVID-19 after the initial recovery. In order to investigate the pathogenesis, transmissibility, long-term sequelae, and potential countermeasures of severe COVID-19, readily available animal models that can closely mimic severe COVID-19 in human are essential but are currently lacking. In this project, we will establish a novel hamster model that mimics severe COVID-19. We will utilize this new animal model to study the pathogenesis, transmissibility, and long-term sequelae of severe COVID-19, and evaluate antiviral and vaccine efficacies for this important infectious disease.
Project Reference No. : C7080-21GF
Project Title : Digital Twin Supported Rapid Deployable and Reconfigurable Healthcare Facility Module for Infectious Diseases Response and Treatment
Project Coordinator : Professor NG Shiu-tong Thomas
University : City University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Hospitals worldwide are facing unprecedented challenges due to the soaring number of COVID-19 patients. Modular integrated construction based healthcare facilities have disrupted how infectious diseases facilities are provided. However, skepticism remains in the routing of highly-infectious inside such temporary facilities, possible disease spreading within the “connected” units, unexpected failure of mechanical system in negative pressure isolation rooms, and agility of reconfiguring the “connected” units to suit patient demand. In this project, a digital twin platform is developed to improve the safety and operational efficiency of front-line medical staff, automation of COVID-19 patient care, monitor patient flow, realize self-diagnosis and self-regulating capabilities of negative pressure isolation rooms, and facilitate demand-driven MiC-based healthcare facility module planning for infectious diseases response and treatment. The results would help governments worldwide to plan, design and provide safe, reliable and efficient healthcare facility modules to satisfy the unpredictable COVID-19 patient demand at different disease outbreak stages.
Project Reference No. : C7086-21GF
Project Title : The Education, Social and Health Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic on University Graduates Transitioning to the Workforce in Hong Kong
Project Coordinator : Dr. ZAYTS Olga
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
The project examines the education, social and health impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on university graduates transitioning to the workforce in Hong Kong. It focuses on three cohorts: 2021, 2022 and 2023. University graduates are considered a vulnerable demographic group in the workforce, and the pandemic has worsened this situation as graduates have faced a suppressed job market, layoffs, and having to demonstrate a new ‘skills set’ required by the workplaces (e.g. more advanced digital skills). Graduates' workplace transitions are an important societal issue as unsuccessful transitions incur huge financial and social costs, including the cost of poor mental health. This project draws on the team's extensive expertise in sociolinguistics and psychology as the primary disciplines and complements it with knowledge from human resource management, public health and economics. It aims to develop evidence-based tools and resources for graduates and other stakeholders (universities and workplaces) that could facilitate graduates' smooth transitions to the workforce. These resources will support the development of core competencies required in post-COVID-19 workplaces, including digital and linguistic competencies and mental health resilience. The project team will work in close collaboration with the city's mental health NGOs, workplaces and universities to ensure the project impact and implementation of its findings.
Project Reference No. : C7101-21GF
Project Title : Neighbourhood factors and social integration of diverse Hong Kong families in the time of COVID-19: An extension of the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics (HKPSSD-D) [HKPSSD-D]
Project Coordinator : Dr. JORDAN Lucy Porter
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Hong Kong has long been a crossroads of cultures and migrants. The focus of this new study is the experiences of social integration, health and well-being among diverse Hong Kongers in the time of COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong. This innovative study combines a sample of the major resident Ethnic Minority South Asian (Indian, Nepali, Pakistani) and Chinese-Ethnic groups within the same study frame for the first time. The study design incorporates a sampling frame drawn from Census 2021, baseline survey data from individuals within households and secondary data regarding neighborhood factors, localized COVID-19 cases and containment responses to comprehensively investigate the experiences of social integration, health, and well-being among diverse Hong Kongers during the time of COVID-19.
The study will contribute new knowledge to understanding the experiences of social integration, and how the impact of differential social integration is manifest in population health and well-being in Hong Kong. The global COVID-19 pandemic is likely not the only catastrophic public health emergency which current and future generations will face, and thus the baseline study can contribute important information to guide future planning and policy and serve as foundation for longitudinal panel study of diverse Hong Kongers. To better ensure the research reflects diverse stakeholders and can be leveraged to influence policy and practice for diverse Hong Kongers, the research team will engage with established networks developed in prior research and practice contexts to collaborate with local community leaders, representatives from non-governmental organisations and policy makers throughout the project.
Project Reference No. : C7104-21GF
Project Title : A real-time monitoring and warning system for COVID-19 and influenza infection in building environment
Project Coordinator : Professor LI Yuguo
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
Together with endemic infectious diseases such as influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes COVID-19, is likely to remain an ongoing challenge to us. Stopping transmission can stop a pandemic. As most cases of COVID-19 and influenza infection occur in inadequately ventilated indoor spaces, we aim to develop a real-time indoor monitoring and warning system to facilitate rapid outbreak analyses and keep occupants safe. Such a system should be economical, based on the science of transmission, simple to operate, and maintain users' privacy. In this multi-disciplinary project, we shall focus on the development of the science behind such a system.
In the first two years of the pandemic, the project team had identified the probable predominance of inhalation routes of SARS-CoV-2. We will expand our existing multi-route and environment-based model of infection risk. We will further analyse SARS-CoV-2 and influenza virus transmission routes by exploring global pandemic data via big data-based and mechanistic-based computing approaches. We will evaluate and verify our system in representative indoor spaces. The proposed system can potentially reduce or eliminate the infection risk of the concerned occupants and provide a safety net by enabling rapid transmission route identification when novel viruses emerge.
Project Reference No. : C7105-21GF
Project Title : Spatial Exposure Notification
Project Coordinator : Dr. SCHULDENFREI Eric Henry
University : The University of Hong Kong
Layman Summary
The devastating cholera pandemics of the 19th century were solved first by epidemiology, which identified the water-borne pathogen and its spread, and then by a civil effort to re-engineer the water infrastructure of cities. How might city design change as a result of the early 21st century pandemic and how do we couple building configuration and the new infrastructure of pathogen surveillance?
As novel air-borne diseases such as SARS and COVID-19 (C19) overtake us, what form should our 21st century response take? Our solution must be interdisciplinary, integrating new ideas from epidemiology, architecture, and psychology. But even fundamental facts of how influenza propagates remain unobserved — we need new ways of sensing the spread of disease in the built environment.
We propose a new class of low-cost sensor devices that interoperate with the current Google / Apple Exposure Notification (GAEN) framework while fixing deficiencies in its design — which, by neglecting crucial spatial and temporal aspects of contagion, triggers inaccurate contact notifications. We maintain (and repair) existing privacy protections while adding new sources of data through the integration of fixed environmental sensors that let us reconstruct key spatial dimensions of contagion.
Exposure risk estimates are improved by more accurately measuring interactions between environment, proximity, time, location, and airflow. These metrics can enable rapid contact tracing for airborne diseases like influenza and can provide a data collection infrastructure essential for the experimentation required to refine transmission models and develop efficient responses. Such data can also guide modifications to building codes, urban environments and policy for future pandemics. By targeting the requirements to operate within architectural elements such as lightbulbs, our proposed GAEN-based sensor devices can potentially enable a massively scalable solution within existing building infrastructure.
The information our system collects in real time is vital to government decision-making. In the C19 pandemic, governments have struggled to enact real-time regulations for quarantining, social distancing and masking. For new diseases, the nature of transmission (fomite vs airborne), incubation periods and transmission curves will again be initially unknown. Manual contact tracing schemes designed to capture this data fail at scale and therefore near-instantaneous contact tracing becomes necessary to produce rapid exposure notifications to reduce infections. Even in the case of the yearly flu, our proposal for a rapid, dynamically calibrated and trusted exposure notification system — which could simply tell potentially infected persons to wear a mask for a few days — might transform the economic and human costs in ways that cannot be hoped for through radical and exorbitant modifications to existing building HVAC systems.