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C U R I O S I T Y - D R I V E N
R E S E A R C H @ H K U S
Prof Kam Tuen Law (right)
PROF KAM TUEN LAW
Assistant Professor of Physics
The award provides funding
to form an internationally
competitive research group in
Hong Kong. Top researchers
can also be brought in to
share their insights and new
discoveries
effects of magnetic fields and also have
potential applications for realizing topo-
logical superconductors and spintronics.
Prof Law obtained his BSc degree
at HKUST in 2003. After obtaining his
PhD degree at Brown University, he
became the first joint postdoctoral fellow
of the HKUST Jockey Club Institute for
Advanced Study andMIT in 2008. He was
a Croucher Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT
from 2009-11.
Muscling in on Aging
Prof Tom Cheung is among the leading
young scientists contributing to global
efforts to reduce the challenges of aging
for the individual and society, as acknow-
ledged by his Croucher Innovation Award
in 2015. The HK$5 million funding is
being used to support his team’s research
into muscle stem cells and how functional
decline could be ameliorated as people
grow older.
Stem cells have a unique ability to
repair tissues. Thorough understanding of
how stem cells work could open new ways
to future medical intervention, particularly
in the area of regenerative medicine.
Prof Cheung’s lab is seeking to gain
a better understanding of why tissue
regeneration is impaired during aging.
Surprisingly, stem cell number remains
relatively constant during aging. However,
its potency gradually declines, resulting
in an impairment of tissue regeneration.
Recently, the researchers’ results suggest
that genes are silenced epigenetically
during the aging process. Prof Cheung’s
team is trying to devise an approach for
the rejuvenation of stem cells in old tissues.
The results could lead to new regen-
erative medicine approaches for age-
related diseases such as sarcopenia, an age-
related muscle disease that is involved in
the degenerative loss of skeletal muscle
mass and strength.
“Increased lifespan in developed
countries creates a number of issues
with regard to healthcare and social
assistance provided to elderly people,”
said Prof Cheung, who joined HKUST in
2013 from Stanford University School of
Medicine. “We need to better understand
the process of biological aging to improve
health and longevity. This would then
help to reduce social and economic needs
as the population ages.”
We try to understand how
stem cells are poised
for action during tissue
regeneration, and why this is
impaired during aging
PROF TOM CHEUNG
Assistant Professor of Life Science
on topological phases, such as fractional
quantum Hall states and topological
superconductors that host an exotic type
of particle called non-Abelian anyons.
Such non-Abelian particles can form
quantum bits in which quantum infor-
mation can be encoded and manipulated.
The understanding of topological phases
could be important for building quantum
computers.
He is also interested in novel super-
conductors. Recently, Prof Law and his
experimental collaborators in the Nether-
lands and the US discovered a new type
of superconductor called “Ising super-
conductor”. These superconductors are
extremely robust against the detrimental
