The Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT) yesterday presented five funded projects involving technological developments related to Covid-19.
In a meeting held at the conference hall of the Macao Science Center, the FDCT presented in detail the five projects that have been concluded and have entered into operation.
The first project is related to an “Intelligent robot for anti-epidemic medical healthcare” that was developed by a team led by Professor Xu Qingsong of the University of Macau (UM).
This project uses mobile robots combined with artificial intelligence technology to provide disinfection in facilities and venues.
These disinfection robots have been provided free of charge to several government departments, including the Municipal Affairs Bureau, and used at trial sites such as the Kiang Wu Hospital and hotels.
A team led by Lei Zhen from Macau Nanometals Technology Co., Ltd was in charge of the second project, which involved nano-silver disinfection products capable of inhibiting more than 650 kinds of unicellular organisms such as the Staphylococcus aureus and the Escherichia coli, and can kill viruses and bacteria that adhere to their surfaces.
The products are effective at inhibiting and killing the Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 and human coronaviruses.
The products have been tested and proved to be safe, non-irritating, and long-lasting.
In the bid to quickly diagnose Covid-19, a team led by Professor Zhang Kang of Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), developed a technique using machine deep learning to analyze more than 530,000 CT (cycle threshold) images to develop the diagnostic system. “Key techniques for diagnosing new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 infection based on artificial intelligence” is the name of the third funded project by FDCT and the techniques have proven to provide diagnostic results with an accuracy rate of more than 90% in just 20 seconds, as well as being able to predict severe and critical Covid-19 cases.
Besides being published in the magazine Cell, the study and techniques were also applied in nearly 20 hospitals in Macau, Guangzhou, Wuhan, and other cities. They have been also provided to Europe, the US, South Korea, Brazil, Ecuador, and other countries and regions through the cloud platform to help with the worldwide fight against the pandemic.
The fourth project was led by Professor Ma Wenzhe of MUST, who has developed testing reagent kits that realize the integration of virus specimen collection and inactivation and nucleic acid extraction. This process eliminates the potential infection risks of “cover opening” for medical workers carrying out nucleic acid tests (NAT) and the contamination of samples by nucleic acids in the environment.
The testing reagent kits are matched with a portable Covid-19 virus point-of-care testing instrument produced by the cooperation partner Beijing OriginGene-tech Biotechnology Co., Ltd. This lowers the requirements for medical workers carrying out NAT tests and removes the limitation that NAT test must be carried out in a laboratory setting, allowing applications in different scenarios.
These kits have obtained European Union “CE” certification and are currently being tested in many countries in Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
The last project of the group of five relates to the creation of a “Digital Microfluidic chip for fast Coronavirus detection”.
The project, developed by a team led by Professor Mak Pui In of UM, was jointly developed with Digifluidic Biotech Ltd. Company and is based on digital microfluidic technology and simultaneous amplification and testing technology for nucleic acid detection.
The project enables the simultaneous detection of two sets of Covid-19 genes on one chip, allowing results to be obtained as soon as 20 minutes after the virus specimen is collected. The chip system also has the advantage of being portable, fast, and easy to operate.
All these projects are responses to the FDCT’s calls, in February 2020, for local higher education institutions to conduct scientific research projects aiming to combat Covid-19.
Various institutions submitted a total of 74 project applications, of which 26 were finally approved, including the five mentioned, which have already been concluded and are now in operation.
