Newsletter No. 3

CUHK Newsletter and managerial staff members of the China State Economic Information System (CSEIS). CSEIS comprises ten model economic information centres and is coordinated by the State Economic Information Centre in Beijing. They are all college graduates with some years of working experience and most have formal training in the scientific and technical fields. Eleven of them are funded by the United Nations Development Programme and eight by the Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund. The programme consists of 14 short courses in economics, management, information systems and statistical computing. Tutors are experts from the University's science, social science and business administration faculties. After the completion of course work, arrangements will be made for each Fellow to join a public or private organization in Hong Kong for two weeks to two months for practical training. Training activities may be in the form of short fact-finding visits, special studies under the guidance of an in-house expert, or an actual project performed for the host organization. Each Fellow will then submit a written report based on such placement activities. CUHK is the first local tertiary institution chosen by the United Nations to conduct development programmes of this nature. Dona t i on of HK$2 Mi l l i on f rom Daiwa The Daiwa Group recently donated HK$2 million to CUHK to set up a trust fund, the annual income from which will provide a number of awards for students to pursue Japanese studies or to participate in cultural exchange programmes in Japan. An agreement on the establishment of the awards was signed at a ceremony held on 13th December, 1989 at the Mandarin Hotel. Those present included the Managing Director of the Daiwa Bank Limited in Japan, the Japanese Consul-General in Hong Kong, the Deputy Secretary for Education and Manpower and the Vice-Chancellors of CUHK and HKU. The first Daiwa Bank Group Awards will be offered in the academic year 1989/90. Candidates will be selected on the basis of their study proposal, academic merits, leadership quality and participation in extra-curricular activities, and financial need. Priority will be given to candidates whose minor subject is Japanese Studies. The trust fund is administered by the Office of Student Affairs. F r om Frozen Embryos to Successful Pregnancy The In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) team of the Faculty of Medicine successfully established an ongoing pregnancy produced by implanting human embryos which had been deep-frozen for four weeks after in vitro fertilization. During IVF treatment for infertility, therapeutic stimulation of the ovary usually produces a large number of oocytes. Such oocytes are extracted through surgery and many embryos can be produced after fertilization in the laboratory. To reduce the risk of multiple birth, the IVF team normally implants no more than four embryos into the mother's uterus on each attempt. The rest have had to be discarded. Since May 1988, the IVF team has been actively involved in research on the methodology of preserving these excess embryos at low temperature (cryo-pre- servation) for a second attempt in case the initial IVF attempt fails to produce a pregnancy. A l l together 109 embryos have been cryo-preserved and 42 have been replaced to the human uterus in 23 attempts. In September 1989 ， 10 embryos were obtained during IVF but no pregnancy occurred after four such embryos were implanted to the uterus of a woman who has failed to conceive An eight-cell human embryo which has been frozen-thawed and cultured for 18 hours in vitro 3