Sustainable Living: Health and Well-being

The malposition of nasogastric tube (NGT) is when the tip is lying in the lungs or the pleural space, leading to pneumothorax, pneumonia and feed empyema and can be fatal. This happens in blind placements and has a 1 - 3% occurrence. Current clinical NGT placement are typically performed blindly without any visual aids. Misplacement is a preventable issue that can delay treatment, increase healthcare costs and put patient safety at risk. This system enhances the accuracy of NGT placement by integrating a flexible guiding stylet with a removable permanent magnet (PM). The magnet allows for easy retrieval and re-insertion, enabling periodic confirmation of the tube's position during feeding. It leverages an external network of magnetic sensors to detect the magnetic field produced by the PM. These sensors, integrated into a smart fabric affixed to the patient, provide real-time feedback through LED indicators that display the exact location of the NGT tip. This technology ensures immediate detection and correction of any misplacement during the insertion process, significantly reducing risks and eliminating the need for repeated imaging or testing, unlike traditional methods that rely on pH tests or radiological imaging to verify the tube’s position. The technology owner is looking for partners to collaborate and further the commercialization of the technology. 

Lactate monitoring has become an essential tool for optimizing athletic performance by providing real-time insights into the body’s metabolic response during exercise. However, traditional lactate testing methods are invasive and often require laboratory equipment, limiting their practicality for continuous monitoring in everyday training scenarios. This new sweat-based wearable technology offers a non-invasive, real-time solution for continuous lactate detection, solving this challenge for athletes and coaches. By enabling real-time tracking of lactate levels through sweat, this technology helps fine-tune training intensity, prevent overtraining, and improve overall performance. Athletes and coaches can use this data to adjust training regimens, optimize recovery strategies, and refine race-day tactics, pushing performance limits while minimizing risks. The technology owner is seeking collaboration and licensing opportunities with:  Health and wellness product manufacturers,  Sports-related industry partners, including sports training facilities and equipment manufacturers.  This wearable solution addresses the critical needs of the sports and wellness industries, offering an innovative tool for enhancing athletic performance and supporting more precise, data-driven training programs.

With the global population rapidly aging, the prevalence of dementia is becoming an increasing concern. As more elderly individuals suffer from cognitive decline, including memory loss and impaired daily functioning, the need for effective interventions is urgent. Dementia, a condition affecting many worldwide, not only diminishes the quality of life for patients but also places a heavy burden on caregivers and healthcare systems.  In response to these challenges, this solution offers a novel method to help dementia patients maintain cognitive function through engaging therapeutic activities. The solution is a cognitive stimulation system that leverages motion tracking and multi-sensory feedback to help users recall familiar actions from their daily lives. By recreating activities such as ironing or spreading jam, the device taps into procedural memory, allowing users to re-enact tasks they once performed regularly. This process stimulates recollection, helping to evoke personal memories and improve cognitive agility. The technology owner is interested to work with:  (1) companies to co-develop/ out-license the technology to help serve more patients and elderly; (2) healthcare facilities such as hospitals or nursing homes for validations and trials. 

Diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) are a serious and common complication of diabetes, often leading to infections, amputations, and prolonged hospitalizations. Even with current standard of care, treatment of DFUs is still challenging, and may not always prevent severe outcomes. This therapy system integrates advanced wound management techniques, focusing on enhancing wound healing, off-loading pressure from vulnerable areas, and improving infection control. Traditional treatments lack comprehensive solutions for wound healing enhancement, pressure off-loading, and effective infection control. This therapy system combines these features into a single solution, offering accelerated healing while its integrated disinfection mechanism helps manage infections with ease. The therapy system is efficient and user-friendly, suitable for deployment in various healthcare settings. Ideal collaboration partners include medical device manufacturers, wound care specialists, and healthcare institutions focused on innovative treatment solutions.

Access to clean and safe drinking water is essential for health, yet millions of people worldwide still lack this necessity. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 2 billion people globally use drinking water sources contaminated with feces, leading to severe health consequences. Unsafe water, along with inadequate sanitation and hygiene, is estimated to cause 485,000 diarrheal deaths each year. Water purification technologies face significant challenges, especially in decentralized systems lacking the efficiencies of large-scale operations. They often have a substantial carbon footprint due to energy-intensive processes and reliance on chemicals. Existing portable devices primarily use filtration and have a limited lifetime on-site, with little opportunity for cleaning to restore its performance.  Developed by a research team, this technology effectively addresses the above challenges by employing electrochemical methods that generates strong oxidizing agents to kill micro-organisms present in raw water and potentially degrade organic pollutants that conventional portable reactors cannot remove via filtration. Due to its working mechanism, the device is self-cleaning and does not need regeneration. By harnessing solar energy and activated carbon, this chemical-free purification approach is not only environmentally friendly but also perfectly suited for deployment in remote areas, developing countries, and disaster-stricken zones where traditional water treatment infrastructure is lacking. The technology owner is looking for collaborations with local SMEs to co-develop scaled systems and deploy it through disaster relief organizations, government agencies and non-profit organizations in selected developing countries. 

As global temperatures rise, governments are setting eco-friendly building standards to address concerns about energy consumption and carbon emissions. Improving energy efficiency in buildings, especially in hot climates where cooling demands increase energy use, has become a major challenge. This has driven the need for sustainable and energy-efficient building materials. Aerogels are among the most promising insulation materials due to their large specific surface area (500-1200 m²/g), high porosity (80-99.8%), and ultra-low density (around 0.003 g/cm³). They are amorphous, chemically inert, non-flammable, and exhibit extremely low thermal conductivity (0.01-0.03 W/(m·K)). Silica aerogel (SA) is particularly notable for having the lowest thermal conductivity, making it ideal for building insulation. The technology owner has developed an advanced insulation coating that incorporating in-house fabricated silica aerogel (SA) powders to enhance both thermal and acoustic insulation in buildings. This technology also works with silica aerogel powders purchased externally. Incorporating 20 vol% SA into paint and plaster formulations can reduce surface temperatures by up to 12°C and chamber temperatures by up to 3.3°C, helping to lower air conditioning use and save energy. The coating also improves acoustic insulation, offering a dual benefit. By meeting the growing demand for greener building solutions, this technology offers a competitive edge in reducing energy consumption and improving overall comfort and building performance.   The technology owner is seeking industrial partners for test-bedding and is also open to licensing opportunities for commercialization, especially with construction companies, building material manufacturers, and developers focused on sustainable and energy-efficient construction.

Issues associated with odor generation present significant challenges in various aspects of daily life, encompassing unpleasant smells from various sources such as toilets, kitchens, pets, tobacco, hospitals, and transportation. These unwanted odors have a detrimental impact on individual well-being, social interactions, and overall environmental quality. Deodorants play a crucial role in addressing these challenges, fostering a more comfortable and hygiene environment. However, conventional deodorants primarily rely on masking the unwanted odors with a strong fragrance, resulting in a slow and ineffective deodorization process, particularly against strong smells. The technology owner has developed a proprietary formulation that offers an effective deodorization approach. Unlike common deodorants, the unique deodorant using the proprietary formulation can remove the sources of unpleasant smells through chemical reactions. It demonstrates remarkable efficiency against a broad spectrum of odors, including those from rotting fish and meat, rotting eggs and milk, rotting vegetable waste, ammonia in toilets, sweat, and body odor. This innovative solution has the potential to revolutionise odor control across diverse scenarios. The technology owner is seeking R&D collaboration with industrial partners who are interested in incorporating this deodorant into their products and applications.

The cause of caries (tooth decay) is a formation of biofilm lying on the teeth and subsequently becoming mature. The acid created by specific bacteria (S. mutans) dissolves the hard tissues of the teeth (enamel), which can result in pain and difficulty with eating or even tooth loss and infection.  Severe dental caries can impair quality of life but is preventable by maintaining good oral hygiene such as using fluoride toothpaste with brush and dental floss or toothpick to clean between the teeth. However, small children, older adults or people with severe disabilities may find it hard to apply.  Besides, Fluorosis may be resulted if there is overexposure to fluoride. People with Fluorosis will develop white opaques on their tooth surface, which affect the appearance. In addition, some mouthwash products contain chemicals like alcohol and chlorhexidine to help kill bacteria. The use of these chemicals has some potential drawbacks like altered taste sensation and staining of teeth. Our new compounds, dihydro-resveratrol or its derivatives can be used for preventing the formation of biofilm and inhibit the growth of bacteria which are cost-effective and very safe to use as they are herbal extracts, which have fewer harmful effects in comparison with those chemical‐based products.