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HKUST 2015-2016 Annual Report
23
Breakthroughs and discoveries that could reshape our world
Advance in Potential
Alzheimer’s Treatment
A research team led by Prof Nancy Ip (Life Science),
The Morningside Professor of Life Science, has
discovered that a protein found in the human body
could be potentially developed as an effective
treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. The team has
conducted a study on the potential therapeutic
role of interleukin-33 (IL-33) in Alzheimer’s
disease, where they injected the protein into
transgenic mouse models. The injection of IL-33
rescues contextual memory deficits and reduces
the deposition of ß-amyloid peptide (Aß),
suggesting that IL-33 can be developed as a new
therapeutic intervention for Alzheimer’s disease
The findings were published in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences. The research
was the result of a collaborative effort among
scientists from HKUST, University of Glasgow, and
Zhejiang University.
RESEARCH
HIGHLIGHTS
Formative Links
Structural biologist Prof Mingjie Zhang (Life
Science) and his team has found that microvilli
and the stereocilia tip-link complexes are formed
via strikingly similar interaction modes, despite
only having harmonin, a PDZ domain-containing
protein, in common. Their findings were published
in Developmental Cell. The results of the study can
help scientists and clinicians to identify mutations
of genes that may cause digestive diseases.
DNA Dynamo
Using state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy
technology, a team of scientists led by Prof Bik
Tye (Life Science) and Prof Ning Gao at Tsinghua
University solved the structure of the MCM2-7
complex at 3.8Å, a resolution that has never been
achieved before for this large complex. The MCM2-
7 complex plays a key role in destabilizing and
unwinding duplex DNA during DNA replication.
This work appeared in an article in Nature and was
also highlighted in a commentary in the same issue.
Solar Cell Chart Success
A record-efficient organic solar cell developed by
Prof Henry He Yan (Chemistry) was included in the
renowned Best Research-Cell Efficiencies Chart,
produced by the US National Renewable Energy
Laboratory. It marked the first time that a solar cell
developed by a Hong Kong institution appeared
on this significant chart, which has compiled the
values of the highest power conversion efficiencies
for different types of solar cells since 1976. The
entry posted “Hong Kong UST”, an organic solar
cell which yields efficiencies of up to 11.5%, as
the latest world record for emerging organic solar
cells. The research finding was published in Nature
Energy. In a separate project, Prof. Yan’s group
demonstrated efficient organic solar cells can be
achieved with nearly zero charge separation driving
force and solved a fundamental problem that the
organic solar cell community has been trying to
tackle for nearly two decades. This fundamental
breakthrough was also published in Nature Energy.
Opening Up the History
of the Universe
Prof Yi Wang (Physics) and his collaborators from
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
proposed a method to probe the evolutionary
history of the primordial universe, using the
quantum phase of massive particles as clocks and
identifying the consequences on the observable
density fluctuations of the universe. This
unique method could guide future experiments
to distinguish primordial universe scenarios and
address the fundamental question: “Where do we
come from?” The research was published in the
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics,
and reported by over 80 media and websites.
