The TCM & Translational Medicine R&D Center of the University of Macau (UM) opened May 24 with 12 scientific innovation projects contracted at one of its laboratories in Hengqin New Area.

The dozen projects at UM-Huafa Group Joint Laboratory encompass Traditional Chinese Medicine, integrated circuits, and "Smart City," and have clear prospects in technology leadership, industrialization readiness, and commercialization.

TCM & Translational Medicine R&D Center of Zhuhai UM Science & Technology Research Institute [Photo by Zhong Fan / Zhuhai Daily]

Li Guangning, general manager of Huafa Group, said they will help industrialize the projects with capital, equipment, investment, and incubation. One of the purposes of translational medicine is to expedite the development and commercialization of known therapies. It also deals with evidence-based and disease-targeted research.

UM-Huafa Group is part of the university's first industry-university-research demonstration base in the Greater Bay Area. The Zhuhai UM Science & Technology Research Institute was established in March 2019. UM-Huafa Group Joint Laboratory was created in October 2019 and three State Key Laboratory branches joined in December 2019.

The institute's new R&D center is in the TCM Science & Technology Industrial Park of Cooperation Between Guangdong & Macao. It has 15 laboratories for start-up teams and 16 for animal experiments, cultivating cells, and preparing pharmaceuticals.

Together, the R&D center and UM-Huafa joint laboratory are to boost the university's sci-tech innovation capability, deepen Hengqin-Macao cooperation, and help the Greater Bay Area become an international sci-tech innovation center. They will accomplish this by efficiently transforming new technologies, products, and therapies, said Song Yonghua, rector of the university.

UM has been cooperating with Hengqin since the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area was issued in February 2019.

(cityofzhuhai)