Hong Kong Baptist University HKBU Faculty of Science

University Research Cluster: Health and Drug Discovery

The implications of an aging population have become an increasingly serious issue in many parts of the world. Significant improvements in public sanitation and the advancement in modern medicine have led an increase in life expectancy. However, does an aging population necessarily come with a longer period of good health, or does it associate with more illness and disability? Indeed, aging is one of the contributing factors to the rise of chronic non-communicable diseases, like dementia, arthritis, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancers. Across the globe, with an approximation of 150,000 people who die each day, about two-thirds die of aging-related causes. The statistics even reach as high as 90% in industrialized countries. Therefore, a better understanding of healthy aging would allow us to improve the quality of life as well as to help in managing the significant rising healthcare costs.

As part of the University strategic plan 2018-2028 and Talent 100, an interdisciplinary research collaboration among the Faculty of Science, the School of Chinese Medicine, the School of Communication and the Faculty of Social Sciences has been established and the University Cluster – “Health and Drug Discovery” is co-founded together. The scope of the cluster research is multidisciplinary in nature. It integrates frontier sciences with the therapeutic wisdom of Chinese medicine for treatment, prevention, and recovery of aging-related diseases.

The research themes of the Health and Drug Discovery comprises of three major domains - technological advancement, disease modeling, and healthy active living. Through the advancement of therapeutic and diagnostic technologies, the research team targets to investigate different etiologies and identify molecular targets of aging-related diseases. Moreover, an integrated analysis of healthy active living, including herbal supplements, health communication, and healthy lifestyles, is encompassed for disease prevention and recovery.

Our development is empowered by the HKBU research centers ("Mr. and Mrs. Ko Chi Ming Centre for Parkinson’s disease research”, “Law Sau Fai Institute for advancing translational medicine in bone and joint disease”, “Traditional Chinese medicine phenome research centre”) and the State Key Laboratory in Environmental and Biological Analysis. The cluster has so far secured HK$ 23 million to establish a central facility and laboratory to ensure the success of this interdisciplinary collaboration. Our achievement will not only make us the first interdisciplinary research team at the forefront in Chinese Medicine but also enhance our global visibility in research at large.

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