Kangning REN receives the award in innovation and entrepreneurship global contest

MicroFlow Innovation Limited, a company spin-off from a research team led by Dr Ren Kangning, Associate Professor of the Department of Chemistry, achieved outstanding performance with its project "All-scenario Rapid Testing Platform against Antimicrobial Resistance". Among over 150 local innovation projects, the project garnered the second runner-up at the “Maker in China SME Innovation and Entrepreneurship Global Contest – Hong Kong Chapter (MiCHK) 2024 Final” on 26 September.

With the rapid evolution in antimicrobial resistance (AMR), particularly with the exacerbation of respiratory infectious disease epidemics in the post-COVID era, there is a pressing demand for advanced antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) solutions. Currently, broad-spectrum antibiotics are prescribed based on empirical judgment due to the lack of information on specific samples to antimicrobial susceptibility. This may lead to diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria and accelerate antibiotic resistance in pathogens. The existing AST methods are time-consuming, and therefore cannot be used as a pre-prescription review to expedite the drug selection process. 

The award-winning project solves this problem by delivering AST results in just three hours. It allows rapid identification of the most effective antibiotics before prescription. It also serves as a reliable, cost-effective, and resource-independent tool for large-scale screening, which is vital for clinical and research settings, food safety, environmental monitoring, and pandemic outbreaks management.

MicroFlow Innovation Limited will represent the Hong Kong SAR to compete in the Global Final Contest of the Maker in China to be held in the fourth quarter of this year in Guangzhou.

MiCHK 2024 was organised by the Digital Policy Office of the HKSAR Government, the China Centre for Promotion of SME Development of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, and the Department of Youth Affairs of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR, together with the support from the Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited and other key partners.