Facts and Figures

Areas of Excellence The University Grants Committee (UGC)* has provided preferential funding to the local tertiary institutions to conduct cutting-edge research. Three such Areas of Excellence (AoE) projects are currently led by researchers at CUHK: Centre for Organelle Biogenesis and Function The centre focuses on understanding the biogenesis and functions of three organelles, namely, Golgi, TGN and EXPO. This research will not only address the fundamental questions concerning organelle biogenesis and functions in important biological processes, such as cell wall formation and stress signalling pathways in plants, but will also have potential applications for the biotechnology industry in Hong Kong and China. Centre for Genomic Studies on Plant-Environment Interaction for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security With the research foci on the understanding of plant adaptation to abiotic stresses, and the mechanisms of gene regulation relating to plant-environment interactions, the centre aims to identify useful functional genes and effective molecular markers to help generating new adaptive varieties to combat major factors hampering sustainable agriculture, including water scarcity, global warming, and topsoil nutrient depletion. The centre pledges to establish a stable soybean genetic population with precise annotated genomic information and deposit the data in a central portal, and contributes to food security through international collaboration and information sharing. Probing the Fundamental Structure of Matter with High Energy Particle Collisions As an active member of the A Toroidal LHC Apparatus (ATLAS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Asia-Pacific region, the project team has established the Higgs particle’s spin and parity and couplings to Standard Model particles, and designed new strategies for probing Physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). Analysis tools have been developed, complete with an ATLAS Tier-2 computing centre in Hong Kong. The team intends to measure the Higgs properties, search for BSM physics, develop particle physics theories and contribute to the ATLAS detector upgrade and to the R&D for the proposed Circular Electron-Positron Collider in China, as well as to develop enhanced techniques in Big Data computing and machine learning. * The UGC is an advisory body responsible for advising the HKSAR Government on the development and funding needs of the higher learning institutions in Hong Kong 35 RESEARCH