Student and Alumni Members Received TSSSU@HKU

Two Faculty members, Dr Rebecca Wang, PhD graduate of Prosthodontics, and Mr Hao Ding, PhD student of Dental Materials Science (DMS), received funding from Technology Start-up Support Scheme for HKU (TSSSU@HKU) lately.

BPA-free resin composite for dental use

Dr Rebecca Wang won the TSSSU@HKU with the project “A novel BPA-free resin composite for dental and medical use” which is based on her PhD project. Bis-phenol A, which is also known as BPA, has proven to pose potential health risk in human, especially for children and women. Sadly, BPA can be eluted from the dental resin composites. In view of this, the project team fabricated and formulated new series of BPA-free resin composites with fibres that can substitute the traditional BPA-containing resin composite.

The team wishes the BPA-free composites, after clinical trial, can be used extensively in dentistry, including dental cavity filling in operative dentistry, resin‐bonded fixed partial dentures for restorative dentistry, a chairside root canal post for endodontic, tooth splints in periodontics and orthodontic retainers; as well as in medical field, such as medical implant in the facial and cranial facial reconstruction for oral and maxillofacial surgery.

Dr Wang is honored to be awarded. She is grateful to all her supervisors in her MSc (DMS) and PhD, especially Professor M.F. Burrow, Clinical Professor in Prosthodontics, who is also the consultant of the project. He has been sharing knowledge and introducing Dr Wang to how research and development of dental products work in the world. In addition, she expressed her gratitude to Dr James Tsoi, Assistant Professor in DMS, who encouraged her to participate in the scheme and broadened her experience in the business world.

Fully automatic creation of dental prosthesis

The awarded project of Mr Ding called “AI-enabled full-automatic dental prosthesis design” is a software or web platform which can design the shape of dental crown using artificial intelligence technique. Nowadays, with the aid of computer, dentists only need to scan patients’ dentition and send digital file to dental laboratories for the creation of the crown. Although this process is much more efficient than making a stone mould, it still takes quite some time. In addition, there have been some concerning issues such as accuracy, sensitivity and robustness of the stone moulds which make them costly and labour intensive.

The project is pioneering a software approach based on machine learning algorithms which adopts each patient’s case and compiles with research findings to achieve a faster, fully automatic and accurate design of dental prosthesis. It is now at its last development stage and will be launched soon.

Mr Ding was excited when he was informed of the second-year recognition by TSSSU for his project. “It is a great honour and pleasure for me to receive the funding. The accomplishment wouldn't have been possible without the tremendous support of my supervisor, Dr James Tsoi, who always shares his research ideas with us. He is my torchbearer. He not only guides me in the research area but also in the business world,” said Mr Ding.

Realise your dream

Since Hong Kong is now striving to develop and support science and technology as well as start-ups and entrepreneurships, there are many kinds of funding and support. TSSSU@HKU, for examples, is an award scheme that provides up to 3-years funding support to technology start-up companies established by HKU members. Both Dr Wang and Mr Ding encourage others to apply for it.

“If you have the passion, it does not matter all you have is just an idea. Seize the opportunity and make it happen. The experience will enable you to learn many things and get more insights beyond doing research,” mentioned Mr Ding. Being a research student, he believes that conducting research is not the whole of his career, knowing what the industries and markets need is also essential. Dr Wang shared the same view, “A lot of teams from different faculties in HKU joined this competition. Regardless of the result, I believe we all share the same dream, to turn our research into practice and make it useful to the human race and eventually create a better life for all. In fact, there are many ways to add-on and share our knowledge with others, such as publishing research papers, applying for patents, and creating technology know-hows. We can think big.”

To learn more about TSSSU@HKU, please visit: https://www.tto.hku.hk/public/tsssu/index.html and the awardees of TSSSU@hku: https://tto.hku.hk/startups/tsssu-program-and-application/tsssu-awardees-2020

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