The Biomedical Engineering (BME) programme offered at PolyU prepares students for numerous career opportunities. The combination of academic studies in multiple disciplines providing knowledge and practical training delivering experience supplies students with the tools necessary to thrive in the future.

There are many opportunities to assist professors in their many projects. Personally, during my first year of study, I had the opportunity to co-author a paper on individuals with unilateral transfemoral amputation with Dr. Kobayashi from PolyU, a Ph.D. student, and Dr. Hobara and his team from Japan. PolyU also has funded an initiative called the Undergraduate Research and Innovation Scheme which allowed my friends and me to propose a project to create a novel ankle-foot orthosis. The project was approved and we were provided with adequate funding, as well as a scholarship that could be used for personal monetary needs. We hope to produce a successful product at the end of our funding next year.

Hong Kong is a vibrant city filled with opportunities and fun activities. My classmates are extremely friendly and I have made many friends from many different backgrounds. I hope to meet you too at PolyU!

PolyU’s Biomedical Engineering programme is the ideal choice for students seeking rich interdisciplinary knowledge and a flexible career path. Taking courses in different disciplines allows students to explore innovative ways to apply their knowledge in the field of medicine and healthcare.

During my studies so far, I have had many opportunities to test my ideas and challenge myself academically. Hands-on freshman projects and sophomore R&D projects familiarised me with the technical and nontechnical processes involved in implementing an idea. Beyond the programme’s mandatory projects, BME is always excited to see students step out of their comfort zones and engage in co-curricular activities. For example, I joined Dr Wen’s laboratory last year as a student assistant and translated my work into a project for a start-up company founded by a graduate of BME (Toby Li). I plan to further extend this work in a capstone project in the coming year!

As well as nurturing professional expertise, PolyU encourages students to develop healthy habits and become well-rounded individuals. I was selected to join the University’s men’s tennis team in my freshman year. For the last three years, I have trained hard and entered several competitions. Spending time with my wonderful teammates and coaches is a highlight of my university life.

Eager to solve clinical problems with biomedical knowledge, I enrolled in the BSc(Hons) in Biomedical Engineering with Prosthetics and Orthotics at PolyU. I won a place on the Dean’s Honours List and achieved a lot as a student, researcher, and entrepreneur.

The Road to Becoming a Clinical Practitioner and Researcher

I have always aspired to become a frontline clinical practitioner to help those in need. Therefore, I chose to study an additional specialist area, Prosthetics and Orthotics (P&O), as part of my BSc programme. Through clinical attachments, I discovered key shortcomings in knee osteoarthritis (KOA) disease management in hospitals.

To address these problems, I decided to leverage a self-learned artificial intelligence (AI) tool in a capstone project entitled “A Time-dependent Machine-learning-based Prediction System for Progression of Knee Osteoarthritis”, under the supervision of Dr Chunyi Wen, now Associate Professor in the BME Department. This AI-based system helps to predict a person’s likelihood of developing KOA, with interpretable results. It could prove to be a valuable tool for devising accurate and personalised KOA therapeutic plans.

Based on the success of this project, I was invited to speak at an international medical congress and authored two scholarly papers. My project, representing the Faculty of Engineering, was also recognised by PolyU under the Outstanding Work by Students scheme. The project write-up was archived by the University Library in 2020 – one of only 16 accepted that year.

I continued my academic journey by pursuing a part-time MPhil in Biomedical Engineering and developed a KOA prognostic model for primary healthcare to aid community-based disease screening. I also became a prosthetist–orthotist to gain clinical exposure and networking opportunities.

My BME Entrepreneurship Adventure

Building on my undergraduate capstone project, I co-founded the company Clinical AI Research Limited (CLAIRE) with the vision of using AI to solve clinical problems and thereby ameliorating chronic disease management whilst also safeguarding public health. Endorsed by the Department, I started to enter local and international competitions. Thanks to the hard work of my talented team and academic support from the Department, CLAIRE is now on the way to becoming a successful start-up company. It has received five entrepreneurship awards and four innovation awards so far, and its findings have been covered in two academic presentations, four project showcases, and four items of media coverage.