CUHK Research

29 CUHK RESEARCH Peter Medawar (1915–87), a Nobel scientist and famed essayist, once said, “If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.” Research is indeed rarely separable from the effects it has on and the good it does to the people or society at large. Soluble and practical-minded. Perhaps no two words better describe the commercial hub that is Hong Kong. Prof. Cheung Waiman’s study of the RFID technology is a good example of the cutting edge relevance of business research at CUHK. Medical innovations can lead to the saving of the lives and limbs of millions. In the early 1990s, CUHK performed the first paediatric marrow and liver transplants in Hong Kong, and innovated in the use of microsurgery to treat age- related macular degeneration. Today, CUHK still leads in, among other things, the prevention and treatment of upper gastrointestinal bleeding and cardiac resynchronization therapy. Prof. Dennis Lo has reassured many an expecting mother with his groundbreaking prenatal diagnosis and is moving on to developing an even more significant diagnostic methodology. What Prof. Samuel Sun and Prof. Lam Hon-ming have been doing in rice and soybean is so fundamental and important that the recipients of the benefits number in the millions. Every schoolboy has heard of global warming, but very few are doing real things to help. Prof. Edward Ng has taught us a few things about the city we live in and what we could do to help make it a little more habitable and comfortable. A n d l e t u s n o t f o r g e t a b o u t t h e disadvantaged. CUHK scholars often lead social service initiatives such as CADENZA and I • CARE. No wonder some of them have been given humanitarian laurels. Prof. Leung Ping-chung, P r o f. Edwa r d Ng, a nd mo r e r e c e n t l y P r o f. G l ad y s Tang, who has brought as normal an education as possible to hearing impaired children. Space permits only a cursory look at a small sample of scholars who have become, wittingly or unwittingly, Good Samaritans. Their other colleagues at CUHK, in their pure pursuits of what intellectually prod them on, are making far-reaching contributions to how we live, breathe, eat and raise our children.