TECH OFFERS

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in men around the world but it is treatable if detected in its early stages. According to Hong Kong Cancer Registry statistics, prostate cancer is the third most common cancer in men and the fifth most fatal cancer. According to a newsletter “MedicalNewsToday”, approximately 50 percent of all men over the age of 50 years have prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN). Low-grade PIN is not a cause for concern but high-grade PIN is considered pre-cancerous, and it requires further investigation. Nowadays, the clinical practice is to check serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood levels but the accuracy is quite low. The technology is a newly developed prostate cancer diagnosis kit that complements the PSA test. It can be used as an additional urine test for patients with PSA test levels within 4-10 ng/ml, which greatly enhance accuracy from 27% to approximately 90%. It is a next-generation diagnostic method for prostate cancer in its early stages and is as simple to use as a pregnancy test strip. This provides a much clearer result for clinicians and patients to decide on further treatment. The new technology has the potential to address the current medical challenge of poor prostate cancer screening outcomes. The technology provider is seeking collaborations and potential licensing opportunities with partners interested to leverage on this prostate cancer diagnostic technology. 

Cellulite, more commonly known as orange-peel skin, is the formation of lumps and dimples in the skin. The underlying cause for cellulite is not clear. It has been attributed to the uneven distribution of accumulated fat cells that push up against fibrous connective cords in the skin, resulting in the skin dimpling. Cellulite affects 80 to 90 percent of women, primarily in the buttocks and thighs. There have been many approaches to improve the appearance of cellulite. However, most of these treatments yield little satisfying results. The technology is a topical cream containing herbs such as Centella asiatica and Zingiber for reducing the appearance of cellulite in women. The technology comprises the anti-cellulite material and its production process. The production involves nano-emulsion for each mixture of the individual anti-cellulite ingredients. Using nanotechnology, this helps to increase the effectiveness and bioactivity of these ingredient components, thereby enhancing its effects on cellulite reduction. The technology provider is seeking collaboration opportunities with research institutes, universities, and industry players to increase product innovations in market niches within the cosmetics and beauty, nutraceutical, and pharmaceutical sectors.

This technology is a software solution centered on a clinically-validated algorithm. This software solution accurately calculates the risk of sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy, one of the leading causes of blindness in the world. Based on an user-friendly individualized risk calculation, the solution facilitates early detection of the eye disease and allows healthcare professionals to provide personalized care to enhance patient’s clinical safety.  The unique software solution serves as a decision support tool to identify low, medium, and high-risk patients and charts the key risk factors for each patient. It can also recommend variable eye screening intervals, based on each patient’s risk profile, thereby ensuring that patients receive the right care at the right time. The solution also supports doctor/patient dialogue by vividly demonstrating, in an easy-to-visualize way, how modifying key risk factors such as blood glucose (HbA1c) and blood pressure, can significantly lower the risk of vision loss. This motivates patients towards enhanced diabetes care and becoming more active participant in their own wellness journey. This is a novel, sustainable solution in an area of high unmet medical need, where today’s methods alone are unsustainable. It can lead to enhanced clinical outcomes, increased diabetic eye screening capacity and potential healthcare cost savings of up to 60%. The technology provider is seeking collaboration opportunities with partners who are interested to adopt this solution for providing diabetic retinopathy care continuum, as well as potential IP licensees who are interested to integrate on the software Application Programming Interface (API) into existing healthcare systems. 

Health products are used by most people for improving the quality of life and involves the use of vitamins, minerals and essential biomolecules delivered through dermal and oral routes. These active ingredients are formulated as skin care and nutraceutical products for the management of various physiological processes such as aging, pigmentation, digestion, and metabolism. The formulated active ingredients are seldom effective due to biological barriers of the human body such as the skin and the digestive tract. To improve their effectiveness, protein nanocages (nCage) can be used to package and deliver active ingredients across the complex barriers, reaching the target site of action. The technology owner have developed the nCage delivery technology to formulate essential active molecules for skin and oral nutraceutical applications. The target users will be product developers and/or formulators of essential active ingredients from the skin care, nutraceutical, and consumer product industries as well as raw ingredient manufacturers. The technology owner is looking for joint venture partners and licensing opportunities from the skin care and oral nutraceutical companies.

Tile grouting is the process of filling up gaps between tiles, after individual tiles have been laid onto cement screed and is a critical part of virtually every construction project. Yet, it remains a highly laborious process, and is considered one of the most physically demanding tasks as it often results in injuries to tilers' knees and back. This, in turn, leads to quality issues when grouting is not performed correctly. The construction labour shortage in Singapore, especially in the tiling/construction industry has likewise catalysed the demand for automation of such jobs - especially since such tasks are deemed to be less desirable to a younger generation of workers. This technology offer is a tile grouting robot powered by Computer Vision (CV) and Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) techniques, running on Robot Operating System (ROS2) to boost construction productivity and reduce the occurrence of workplace injury. The robot is able to boost productivity by at least 5 times and this results in an amortisation time of roughly 24 months.

The presence of heavy metals in food or feed powders involves contamination of the food chain and potential harm to public health, as such, rapid detection is a time-critical issue. The uncertainty about food safety caused by the possible presence of heavy metals is of concern to consumers and regulatory authorities and this is typically addressed by increasing the testing frequency of food or feed samples. However, existing testing methods are often time-consuming and require highly skilled laboratory personnel to perform the testing. This technology employs spectroscopic imaging methods and machine learning techiniques to rapidly detect heavy metals in food or feed samples. The machine learning model can perform a multi-class differentiation of the various heavy metals based on spectroscopic measurements. It is also able to predict the concentration of heavy metals present in food or feed powders using spectroscopic measurements. Minimal sample preparation is required for this method, allowing for the rapid screening of food or feed powder samples. The technology owner is interested in collaboration with companies working with food powders, with an interest in heavy metal content within food powders.   

Raman spectroscopy is a highly sensitive optical technology which enables the non-destructive measurements of internal biochemical constituents of an object. When objects are illuminated with a laser, the light reflected from the sample forms a characteristic spectrum or ‘fingerprint’ of the material. In the clinic, skin conditions such as atopic dermatitis or eczema are commonly examined via visual inspection, typically at higher magnification via dermoscopy. This technique is simple, non-invasive and real-time, but is subjective to the dermatologist’s judgment. On the other hand, skin biopsy is more accurate and currently serves as the gold standard, but is invasive and time-consuming in nature. In this context, a handheld CRS device which can provide non-invasive, real-time and accurate skin diagnosis has been specifically developed to fulfil this clinical need. Due to the increasing convergence of clinical dermatology and dermocosmetics, this technology can be used for consumer skin health assessment too. In addition, the convergence of food and skin health (nutricosmetics) with food ingredients being used in cosmetic products also allows this technology to be used for product characterization at any point along the entire supply chain. The technology provider is seeking collaboration and IP licensing opportunities with partners who are interested to leverage on this portable technology for dermatological applications. 

This technology offer is a Ultrahigh Frequency (UHF) Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tag antenna for use on metal structures. 2 versions are available: A compact dual-band version with folded strip structure, with a total size of only 20 mm × 30 mm × 1.5 mm. This tag can be well used in different RFID systems, which work at different UHF bands, such as European and American frequencies. The reading patterns of this tag are with different directions in two bands. A single band version with a total size of only 10 mm × 30 mm × 1.5 mm. This tag can be well used in planar as well as conformal platforms, such as metallic cylinders and bearings. Automated factories should be interested in these tags, and they can use the miniaturized tags with RFID technology to intelligently detect whether the machinery and equipment are running normally.

Seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) is the state-of-the-art technology to transform the inexhaustible supply of seawater into freshwater to alleviate water stress worldwide. Nevertheless, the least energy-intensive seawater desalination plant still consumes around 3 kWh per m3 water produced, which is three to four times higher than surface water treatment. Thus, the biomimetic membrane is explored to improve the energy efficiency to maintain the sustainability of seawater desalination. A unique aquaporin-based biomimetic membrane (ABM) is formulated by incorporating the water channel proteins, aquaporins, into a polyamide membrane matrix to fabricate ultra-permeable SWRO membrane for clean water production. This robust ABM can be operated at the harsh condition of the desalination plant, i.e., high salinity, high operating pressure and extreme chemical cleaning process for the membrane. In addition, the ABM exhibits excellent performance stability and antifouling propensity. Most importantly, it is scalable to the industrial production level. The technology owner is interested in seeking technology licensing collaborators or manufacturing partners.