The General Plan for the Development of the Guangdong-Macao Intensive Cooperation Zone in Hengqin mentions that the University of Macau (UM) and other higher education institutions will set up institutes in Hengqin for industry-academia collaboration with a high standard and establish a technology innovation and transfer centre there. In recent years, UM has been setting up its first institute for industry-academia collaboration in the Hengqin New Area through its Zhuhai UM Science and Technology Research Institute (ZUSTRI), and it has already introduced a number of technological projects into the institute for technology transfer.
As UM Rector Yonghua Song has pointed out, it is imperative to accelerate the creation of a technological innovation system within higher education institutions to move research results from ‘laboratories’ to ‘production lines’ in a more efficient manner, and such a system is important for enhancing such institutions’ capacity to come up with original innovations and develop core technologies.
Promoting the Diversification of Macao’s Economy
“As the only internationalised public comprehensive university in Macao and one of the best universities in the western Greater Bay Area (GBA), strengthening research and development of advanced technologies and the commercialisation of research results is the path UM takes in integrating into the GBA,” Rector Song says.
UM has positioned itself as a university of and for Macao. It actively participates in the development of the GBA and is integrating itself with the rest of the country, with the ambition to go global. UM has in recent years focused on developing more innovative and original technologies, and promoting the diversification of Macao’s economy through the integration of government, industry, academia, and research. In 2020 alone, UM filed 71 patent applications and obtained 20 patents in the fields of biomedicine, Chinese medicine, computer science, electrical and electronic engineering, machinery, microelectronics, and microfluidics.
In terms of technology transfer, UM has found its own path – turning research achievements into marketable products through ZUSTRI in collaboration with companies and universities in the mainland. As of September 2021, over 105 projects from ZUSTRI had received research grants from government entities and funding organisations at national, provincial, and municipal levels, including the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The total number of research projects commissioned by enterprises stood at 42.
Cutting-edge Interdisciplinary Projects Introduced into GBA
UM is committed to enhancing Macao’s comprehensive strengths through science and education, and is focused on the major needs of Macao and the country. Through ZUSTRI, UM has established branches of its three state key laboratories, in the fields of Chinese medicine, microelectronics, and the internet of things for smart cities, respectively, on Hengqin Island. It is also actively creating research platforms in such fields as advanced materials, precision medicine, and regional oceanology. These research platforms are expected to facilitate the introduction of cutting-edge, interdisciplinary projects into the Zone.
UM and Huafa Group have established a university-owned joint laboratory to promote collaboration with enterprises in the GBA in the area of industrial incubation. The first 12 projects, covering such areas as biomedicine, new materials, and smart city technology, are currently underway in the laboratory. UM has also established a joint laboratory of advanced intelligent computing with several other organisations, including DHQ Tech and the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It is the first Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao joint laboratory in Zhuhai.
Rector Song hopes that by participating in the development of the Zone, UM could accelerate the development of ZUSTRI and develop high-level industry-academia collaboration with more enterprises and higher education institutions, so as to promote the diversification of Macao’s economy, intensive cooperation between Guangdong and Macao, and the development of the ‘Guangdong-Zhuhai-Macao Science and Technology Innovation Corridor’.
Supporting the ‘Big Health’ Industry with New Technologies
The General Plan mentions the need to accelerate the establishment of a microelectronics industry chain featuring chip design and testing, and to develop Chinese medicine and other signature industries of Macao. UM leverages the advantages of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Science and Technology Industrial Park of Cooperation between Guangdong and Macao in the integration of production, education, and research in the field of Chinese medicine, in order to create a one-stop platform that fulfils multiple functions, including research, development, and testing of traditional Chinese medicine-based drugs, pilot-scale production and full-scale production that meet Chinese and European standards, and industrial incubation. UM will start with the research, development and production of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)-based drugs to support the development of the so-called ‘big health’ industry in Macao and the Zone.
For instance, Golden Wound Dressing, a product developed by UM researchers with an active component extracted from the bark of the Chinese herbal plant Eucommia ulmoides Oliver, can be used as a dressing for diabetic foot wounds to reduce the risk of amputation. ‘The idea behind this innovation is to repair damaged human skin tissue with Eucommia bark extract,’ says Prof Wang Chunming of the Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences.
The wound dressing will be tested in pre-clinical trials to get ready for industrial-scale production, and he hopes to eventually realise ‘multi-pipeline’ drug development. ZUSTRI’s R&D Centre for Chinese medicine and translational medicine, which is located in the Industrial Park, has been completed and will soon become operational. The centre aims to achieve maximum efficiency in the commercialisation of new technologies, products, and treatment therapies.
Promoting the Development of the Chip Industry
ZUSTRI’s Microelectronics Research Centre will enable UM’s State Key Laboratory of Analog and Mixed-Signal VLSI* to play a leadership role in carrying out cutting-edge research and facilitating technology transfer in the field. This way, UM will be able to play a greater role in supporting the new national development strategy. Currently, projects undertaken or incubated by the centre mainly concern the various branches of chip design, such as wireless communications, analog-to-digital converters, power management, high-speed communication interfaces, and microfluidic bio-detection.
* Very large-scale Integration (VLSI)
UM’s chip researchers focus on research areas based on their forecast of the future direction of the industry in the next three to five years, ensuring the market value of their efforts in research and development. Lu Yan, head of the centre and associate professor at the Institute of Microelectronics of UM, believes that the Zone will become a magnet for high-quality, innovative resources required in the development of the IC (integrated circuit) industry, which will be conducive to the commercialisation of UM’s technological achievements in chip research in the Zone.
Promoting Technology Transfer through Collaboration with Hospitals and Enterprises
One of the projects, which was independently developed by UM and which will be tested in clinical trials at Zhujiang Hospital of Southern Medical University in Guangzhou in collaboration with ZUSTRI and the Industrial Park, is a blood fluoroscope, which can diagnose serious illnesses and even identify sepsis. Prof Liu Tzu-Ming of the UM Faculty of Health Sciences, says: ‘This technology has the potential to be applied in emergency departments and intensive care units to monitor the biochemical properties of blood to reduce the mortality rates among patients with serious illnesses.’ He believes that the release of the General Plan will facilitate the collection of clinical specimens, attraction of top tech talent, and collaboration with contract research organisations (CROs), which will in turn accelerate technology transfer.
The smart disinfection robots developed independently by UM researchers are currently being used in the outpatient department of Kiang Wu Hospital, government entities, and hotels in Macau. These smart disinfection robots substitute frontline disinfection workers and reduce the risk of infection. This invention, which is already patented, falls in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), one of the key industries mentioned in the General Plan to be given priority. “UM is negotiating with Macao and mainland enterprises and potential institutional investors to launch the product into the market to serve the GBA,’ says Prof Xu Qingsong of the Faculty of Science and Technology.
– Article provided by UM
* Minor edits by The Macau Post Daily
Aerial photo of the Guangdong-Macao Intensive Cooperation Zone in Hengqin taken in July 2021 and provided by UM yesterday.
Rector Yonghua Song poses on the UM campus in Hengqin. Photo taken in February 2021 and provided by UM yesterday.
