Annual Report 2004–05

Technology Transfer Novel TCM-Platinum Compounds with Anti-tumour Activity Heading for Clinical Development A series of no v el a n t i - t umo ur agents developed b y Prof. Steve Au - Ye u ng of the Ch em i s t ry Department, Prof. Y.P. H o of the School of Pharmacy and Prof. L i n Ge of the Pharmacology Department have been licensed to a biopharmaceutical company i n ma i n l and China wh i ch w i l l further advance the agents for clinical development. The discovery of the anti-tumour agents is the result of a decade-long research collaboration by the three professors w i t h the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The research team has adopted an 'East meets West' approach wh i ch innovatively integrates a traditional Chinese medicine component w i t h a p l a t i n um entity. Pre-clinical experimental data shows that the new agents are effective against a w i de range of cancer cells. I n addition, the new agents are expected to eliminate cross- resistance and induce m i n i mal side effects. Over the years, the novel c omp o u n ds have been granted patents i n the US and China. There are also pending patent applications i n Europe, Japan, and other major countries. OnMe — An Online Game Engine Tailor-made for Hong Kong Digital Entertainment Industry Prof. John C.S. L u i of the Compu t er Science and Engineering Department has been f u n d ed by the Innovation and Technology Fund to develop the OnMe project — Online Mobile Engine for Creating Multi-players Online Game for Mobile Devices. The objective of this project is to create a new p l a t f o rm for designing multi-players mobile online games for different mobile devices using the J2ME and Symbian platform. This project has far-reaching benefits for many industries i n H o ng Ko ng spanning f r om the movie and television industries, to the comics and animation industries, as we ll as mobile operators and mobile devices manufacturers. According to a recent s t u d y of the H o n g K o n g d i g i t al e n t e r t a i nme nt i n d u s t ry c o n d u c t ed by the H o n g K o n g P r odu c t i v i ty Council, most companies i n that i n d u s t ry are y o u ng SMEs lacking resources to access support services so vital to their development. Soon after a prototype of the game engine was developed, a local game developer acquired a licence f r om the University to use the game engine for their online game development. It is expected that the OnMe project w i l l significantly enhance the online game d e v e l o pme nt capability of the H o n g K o n g d i g i t al en t e r t a i nment industry. The World's Smallest Bluetooth Enabled LTCC Module Ready for Commercial Exploitation Prof. W u K e - Li of the De p a r t me nt of Electronic En g i n e e r i ng a nd his research t e am have successfully developed the world's smallest Bluetooth communication module w i t h support f r om the Innovation and Technology Fund. This integrated modu le is based on L ow Temperature Co- f i r ed Ceramic ( LTCC) technology. A l l the required passive Radio Frequency (RF) f un c t i onal circuits, particularly balance-to-unbalance transformer (balun), matching network, bandpass RF filter and antenna, are embedded into a 12-layer ceramic substrate i n a 3-D fashion. The size of the module is 12 by 12 by 1 mm 3 wh i ch is less than half the size of commercial modules available i n the market. This patent-pending module requires far fewer surface moun t ed components, and can be applied to any Bluetooth enabled consumer wireless products i n c l u d i ng mobile phone headset, laptop computer, MP3 players and digital cameras. A number of companies have already s h own interest i n launching commercial Bluetooth modules based on Prof. Wu 's innovation. 研究 Research 4 9