Scientific research has brought major changes to the world. CUHK brings together top researchers for the incubation of world-leading technologies into tangible applications and products under the university’s support. Advances in the fields of life and health technology, artificial intelligence, smart cities, robotics, and environment and sustainability have been in the spotlight in recent years. CUHK Innovation reveals the stories of CUHK scholars and alumni, and how they have applied innovative technologies in these fields to improve people’s health and life.

Playing a major role in enhancing the quality of human life, healthcare technologies, artificial intelligence and robotics technologies are the international global trends in the development of innovation and technology. CUHK has established six InnoHK Centres covering health, biomedicine, robotics and artificial intelligence in partnership with prestigious global universities.

A low sensitivity faecal test is used to screen for colorectal cancer. Its cause, polyps can only be detected by a probing colonoscopy. Now a CUHK Medicine team has devised a first ever, highly sensitive, non-invasive “bacterial gene markers” test on faeces. It is 94% sensitive to the cancer, and over 90% sensitive to recurring polyps - which the present test can’t detect at all.

A university research team has found that lower levels of “good” bacteria and higher levels of “bad” bacteria in the gut of people with COVID-19 has made it harder for them to fight off the virus. The team has since developed a probiotic supplement based on this research to enhance the “good” bacteria thereby offering hope to boosting immunity against the virus in everyone who could be at risk.