Ir Prof. Yongping Zheng shares his journey in BME

The Department of Biomedical Engineering at PolyU has evolved and improved dramatically from when it was established in 2012. In this article, we will dive into the experience of one of our pioneers Ir Prof. Yongping Zheng to explore his life, interests, past, current, and future projects so that we can understand the history of BME and the future of this field.

The interest of Prof. Zheng in electronics takes its roots in his childhood. While studying in primary school he loved to assemble and disassemble things, such as clocks and radio machines. Upon going to university, he selected electronics as his major, which was called radio technology at that time. During the interview Prof. Zheng emphasized on repeated occasions about the concept of interest and vision:

"Interest is a very important aspect that drives and motivates us to continue to do something.  Another aspect that I would like to mention is the vision. This is something that forms gradually as we grow and develop. Focusing only on interest may have some limitations, because sometimes even if we have an interest, there will be various matters that bother and discourage you. Therefore, I later found that vision is another important aspect towards achieving some goals. Vision is what we want to achieve and what we want to really do. Sometimes we encounter difficulties or even lose our interest, but if you want to achieve that vision we will overcome that.”

Now undergraduate students rarely encounter Prof. Zheng in class, as with the increase of staff number in the BME Department he mostly focuses on administrative works and other projects. However, he actively participates in the development of new subjects, such as the CAR subject offered by our department called Skin-Care Technologies: Principles, Applications, and Safety.

The history behind the creation of this subject

“I initiated this idea because one day I got a call from an officer of Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department, who encountered a case of misuse of cosmetic devices. They found that there were fake skincare devices. The device is called HIFU - high intensity focused ultrasound, which originally was used for medical purposes to kill and damage cancer cells with elevated temperature incuded by high intensity focused ultrasound. But in Hong Kong, if you search in Google, you will find out that it is commonly used as a cosmetic term and that almost every beauty salon has this device. Actually, with good control, it is safe because it only damages a specific layer under the face skin. However, there is a two-layer question, first - the device itself, second - its operation, both should be regulated but they are commonly not. Since HIFU has been very popular in Hong Kong, it is especially dangerous. Later on, I found that there are even two devices in the market for home use. There were reports about damages of customs' gland, skin and nerves. I realized that we must educate people. This is the reason why we established that subject. When we offer this topic as a subject, we also realize that BME is so important and such broad, well covering cosmetic device area.”

Jockey Club Smart Ageing Hub (JCSAH)

Among other positions, Prof. Zheng is also currently the Director of Jockey Club Smart Ageing Hub (JCSAH). Originally it was a place for mechanical workshops of BME, later Prof. Zheng together with BME colleagues established JCSAH at its place. JCSAH has been supported by Hong Kong Jockey Club Charitable Fund with HKD48M. This is a platform engaged in the development, promotion, and application of gerontechnology and increasing the awareness of the public about the existing technologies for the elderly.

Scolioscan

Prof. Zheng is one of the inventors of Scolioscan, the device which has already been clinically used in different countries all over the world, such as China, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Australia, etc. This device uses 3D ultrasound imaging to form coronal spinal images for the assessment of scoliosis for different purposes, including screening, diagnosis, follow-up, treatment outcome measurement, real-time feedback during measurement for scoliosis, which is the most common spinal disease among the kids, etc. Prof. Zheng shared that his team recently focus on a project for prediction of possible progression of scoliosis before it gets worse. The key significance of the project is that it allows the doctors to identify that 20% of the patients whose scoliosis may really progress in the future, unlike 80% of the patients who remain stable. This technology has been licensed to startup companies with its core members from BME graduates. Prof. Zheng’s aim is to develop a business from PolyU novel technology and medical devices that can be used by patients all over the world and recruit more graduate students.

Besides, there are projects related to stroke, spinal cord, and traumatic brain injuries, that Prof. Zheng’s team has also been currently working on.

Eieling Technology Limited

Being the founder of the start-up “EielingTechnology Limited'', Prof. Zheng was kind enough to share with us about what this company does. “Basically, this (company) is related to liver health” Prof. Zheng continues, “So, the liver actually can have a lot of potential problems, there are two major ones, fatty liver and liver fibrosis that will lead to liver cirrhosis, ultimately liver cancer. So, this way early diagnosis of fibrosis is very important.” Currently, the gold standard for diagnosis is generally to use biopsy, which is very harmful and invasive, and traditional ultrasound is quite inaccurate. Prof. Zheng continues “This technique is for elasticity imaging. Basically, they use ultrasound to measure the stiffness of tissue and that the procedure is to give the ultrasound probe a vibration and the vibration will propagate into the liver with certain speed, this speed actually is related to the elasticity of liver.” In order to perform this better, a special technique called ultra-fast ultrasound imaging is used. The reason it is called ultra-fast imaging is that it tracks around 3000 fps (frames per. second), as opposed to the normal ultrasound imaging devices which provide 30 fps. Now, when researching, weare monitoring the process of muscle contraction, using as high as 50,000 fps in order to see how the muscle can gradually contract from one place to another place and the overall procedure of the contraction. The current devices in the market are only able to obtain the stiffness values and cannot actually see the liver. Seeing the liver while conducting the measurement helps operators to select a region of the area easier and to avoid letting the vibration hit the vessel which induces measurement errors. This is because if the vibration hits the vessel, it will not propagate accurately. Furthermore, making it such a small device allows it to beaccessible anywhere, and people can even scan in comfort at their own homes. 

Why does PolyU BME have many connections?

There are several good reasons why our department has a well-established network of partners in local and overseas companies. The department has a long history, and therefore apart from working on building these relations over the years, a lot of graduates are out there, most of which have already developed into management level. Also, Prof. Zheng notes that PolyU students themselves build a reputation by being practical and well-equipped with solid skills.

Advice to students looking to commercialize their ideas

”A student once asked me, now you are developing so many medical devices, and you keep claiming these devices are so good, then why hasn’t GPS (General Electric, Philips, Siemens) made it? '' Such companies have such large resources, talents, and technologies, how could you compete against them?” Prof. Zheng actually discussed this matter with multiple companies in China. He mentioned that there is effectively no way that you can compete with GPS if you are making something they are making, as they have the accumulation of patents, meaning that they will sue if other people make them. Hence, Prof. Zheng believes that “The first thing is to never think impossible.” Prof. Zheng continues  “They (Large companies) will not be an expert in all areas, meaning that there are specific areas that they may not be too familiar with.” An example he gave was the reason for starting 3D ultrasound in 2003, whereby his first Ph.D. students developed many algorithms and methods, but at the time it was not known to be used for scoliosis, and they just did basic research. They focused on how to image better, scan better amongst other imaging and scanning techniques. Meanwhile, Prof. Zheng has established a lot of collaborations with experts in orthopedics and orthotics, who are diagnosing scoliosis and making spinal braces for scoliosis patients, respectively. Over years of efforts and collaboration, ultimately Scolioscan was developed and commercialized, and the first patent in this area has been issued in China, the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, Europe 12 countries. Prof. Zheng believes that another essential factor to have is vision. “For example, some students might just want to make something or just want to have a Hong Kong market, then everything ultimately will have a plateau. Therefore, I think it needs to have a longer and wider vision. Afterward, have patience, and take things slowly, step-by-step. In Chinese there is a phrase “天時地利人和”, meaning the right time, right place, right people, the right environment, and right opportunities are all critical factors in determining the success of an idea.

“Hence,” he continues, “the only thing we can do is try our best and do not forget our vision and we need determination. As you start a start-up company, you will encounter all kinds of difficulties, some of which you have prepared, and some of which you have never prepared for. Therefore, you need to have the capacity to solve the problems that you are both interested and not interested in.”

What do you think about the expression “go with the flow?”

“In 2017, I remeber a reporter from PolyU also asked this question and I answered “do not follow the flow” and you need to have your own vision.” Said Prof. Zheng “What I mentioned was that the fashion or the flow can change because today the flow may be in this direction, but tomorrow it can be in another direction. If we keep following the flow then we may not have our own direction. Sometimes you will see if you do not follow the flow, you may need to take much more effort to overcome something. But you're actually preparing yourself because the flow will not always be against you. Ultimately, one day the flow will come in your direction and you will be much faster than others because you are well prepared, and you have already overcome those difficult times. Even for some period of time, you will feel difficulty or you will feel frustrated because the flow is always against you. So, there are a few good examples of this, I think one good example is technology development. At a certain stage, you will feel that technology is so difficult and there are not many applications. But suddenly, perhaps due to external factors, there’s a need for it. Therefore, as you have already prepared the technology for it and overcame the hardships of developing it, this opportunity is yours.”

Past and current projects

“I studied at the University of Science and Technology of China,” says Prof. Zheng, “so in my master's degree, I developed an ultrasound system. I love to develop devices. So I developed a system and then that is for very high-resolution speed of ultrasound measurement inside a material, which is a new type of superconductor.”  In his second project, he made a device for his university colleagues to quantify the superconductor material. So they will cool down to a certain degree of temperature, and that material will ultimately become a superconductor. The next problem that Prof. Zheng faced was “How do we know it becomes a superconductor?”. One way is to have the power supply and to monitor but that method is not effective, because it will affect the material itself. To solve this, ultrasound can be used, we can measure that because there's a phase change, suddenly the speed of the material changes during the change of superconducting. So this is why we mentioned this.

In 1993. After graduation, Prof. Zheng came to Hong Kong. “When I came here then at that time, at the Jockey Club Rehabilitation Engineering Center, my supervisor Prof. Arthur Mak said that there's a project related to tissue biomechanics, which requires ultrasound measurement, and at that time, the center did not have expertise in ultrasound. The whole study was about how to design a better socket for amputee patient, and my supervisor’s team used finite element analysis to simulate the interaction between amputee tissue and socket. To establish such a model for analysis, we need to have socket material and body tissue mechanical properties. Since we could not find quantitative in vivo soft tissue elasticity measurement device, we aimed to make a device. This was my task and later became my Ph.D. thesis, and I selected using ultrasound to help. After 4 years of study, I developed a device, named a tissue ultrasound palpation system (TUPS). This is my starting point of career on biomedical ultrasound.” continues Prof. Zheng “I'm currently working mainly on 3D ultrasound imaging, sonomyography (muscle dynamic imaging), elasticity imaging, etc. So, my advice, if we follow the question, I found that over the years, the most important thing is to do the best, I mean, make it the best in the field. Even if entering a field you may not be too interested in, you should still do your best, and then the opportunity will come one day.”

To let the students learn from your experience, could you tell us about the time you have made a mistake or experienced failure along your professional pathway and what you did to keep yourself motivated and to make it through that?

“Yes, of course, I made mistakes, but I try to look at them from a positive perspective. Making a mistake and realizing, it was a gift to me. I can recall a few moments when I actually made a mistake. One of them was during my first year of my Master’s degree in 1990. At that time, I was working with my groupmates on the topic of using ultrasound to characterize superconductors. We have been using very expensive ultrasound devices imported from the United States. As I mentioned earlier, I am really into assembling and disassembling the equipment, so I was curious about the machine we just got from the US. I wanted to know how it works and what special components was inside of the machine to make its measurement results of sound speed so accurate. I opened the machine and then tried to assemble it back, but when I finished, it didn’t work. Because I did that in the past and had some experience of assembling the devices, I was confident in myself that I would be able to do the same that time. When the device didn’t turn on, I was so scared because I knew the device was new and it was very expensive. I spent several nights trying to solve the problem and understand why the machine was not working. Later on, I realized I made a mistake when I connected the wires in the wrong way. This accident was a really good experience for me, I learned a lot and now every time I start a new project or work on something, I am being very careful and take everything step by step, and for key steps, I will take photos to record. It benefits me a lot, by being careful I do things right from the first try, so that I don’t have to redo it again.”

As we know you and Dr Xin Zhao went to the Geneva Inventions Expo to present your project and you won the silver medal for your “Liverscan: Palm-sized Real-time B-mode Ultrasound Imaging Guided System for Liver Fibrosis Assessment”, how did you decide to participate in EXPO and what insights have you gotten from this competition?

“My team has participated in this exhibition many times. I am not particularly excited, as I have realized that getting medals is relatively easy, but the more challenging thing is to make these innovations useful one day. I perceive any award I got as just a little start for a long journey, no matter if it is a gold or silver medal. I am convinced that technologies and innovations are the future, especially for Hong Kong, I feel that we need to make our innovations lead the industry, so that we can develop an innovation-based economy and attract more talents working in the field and then to make more successful cases, thus to help Hong Kong to leave the current challenging status.”

You have achieved many personal and professional goals during your career path, could you please share your experience and some tips for young students to be more productive and how do you manage to maintain such a passion for your work? Because we often meet people and students who experience “burnout” and completely lose their interest in their work, have you ever experienced this and if yes how did you overcome this challenge?

“As I mentioned previously, I would like to emphasize vision and interest, but this time I put vision before interest, as sometimes we need to do something not our interest, but we must overcome it before we can realize vision. For example, I am very good in technical aspects, so this is my real interest. When I took the position of BME head in 2012, BME was undergoing a very difficult situation, we separated from another department and moved into another faculty. We had a very limited budget because of our small number of students, with that budget we were able to afford only a limited number of staff. Spending a lot of efforts for increasing department budget was never in my interest, but as the Head I have the duty to do so. I feel that what I have done is beyond duty, I have set it as my vision. Similarly, I was not so good at communication before being the Head of Department or alone in my life, but with time and gaining more experience, I learned better ways to communicate with my colleagues, students, external working partners. I said to myself, I am now BME Head, not representing myself but the whole department. This motivates me a lot, and we may call it vision. Furthermore, even working as the Head of the BME department was not my original interest. Then after I became the Founding Head for BME, this definitely my duty, but I found what really drive me to make all the efforts to overcome all the challenges day to day to develop BME is my vision to make BME a strong department in PolyU. When the BME was just formed, it was called the Interdisciplinary Division of Biomedical Engineering, later on it became the BME department. We have gone through many difficult situations, in the beginning, our ranking was almost at the bottom, 8 years later now, BME is ranking higher than many departments at PolyU. To summarize this, I just want to say that if the vision is clear, everything is reachable.”

What is your biggest dream/goal?

“My dream is to set a model for innovations and technologies for Hong Kong, to set a protocol that others can follow. Recently, I have been putting a lot of effort into transferring technologies into business so that in the future we can provide a lot of job opportunities for fresh graduates, motivating them to work harder and use their talents and engineering skills to improve Hong Kong’s economy as well provide Hong Kong invented medical devices to serve patients all over the world.”