理學院｜
School of Science
T
he School of Science
has five departments: Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and
Physics. Together they enrol about one-quarter of the University’s students.
The School launched a number of initiatives during the year, including a more flexible curriculum in the
Department of Biochemistry. The department will introduce different options for specialization in Cellular
and Molecular Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Chinese Medicinals, as well as Neurosciences. To address the
much-anticipated educational philosophy of outcome-based learning, a set of intended learning outcomes
(ILOs) for the Biochemistry program has been set. To map the ILOs, some existing courses have to be
re-designed and some new courses are to be introduced.
In addition, a few new courses for general education in biomedical sciences for non-biological science
students will be introduced to meet the increasing demand under the four-year curriculum.
The School’s collaborative project entitled “Protein—phosphoinostitides interactions in neuronal signalling”
was awarded a $6 million Collaborative Research Grant by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council.
Prof Mingjie Zhang of the Department of Biochemistry is the principal investigator for this project.
Co-investigators include faculty members from HKUST, the University of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong
Polytechnic University.
In August 2007, more than a hundred leading scientists from 2l countries converged on the HKUST campus
for the 6th International Conference on Bioinformatics. HKUST’s Bioinformatics Center, set up in September
2006, was picked as the venue for this prestigious event.
With the support from HKUST and the Croucher Foundation, the first UK-HK Frontiers of Science Symposium
took place at HKUST from 16 to 18 January 2008. Hosted by the UK’s Royal Society, this was the first time
Hong Kong has hosted the prestigious Frontiers of Science series.
HKUST 2007-2008 Annual Report
21
