NTU Singapore Collaborates With Chinese & Japanese Institutions

NTU Singapore partners with University of Chinese Academy of Sciences for artificial intelligence research and Japan’s RIKEN for human biology studies.

AsianScientist (Mar. 20, 2017) – Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has entered into research agreements with China’s University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) and Japan’s flagship research institute in the natural sciences, RIKEN.

Under the five-year agreement with UCAS, the two leading institutions in Asia will enhance joint research collaborations as well as ramp up visits and exchanges for students, academic and research staff.

One key research area will be looking at translating existing and future research advances in artificial intelligence (AI), Internet-of-Things (IoT), big data analytics and virtual reality (VR) into useful commercial products and services.

To achieve this, the NTU-University of British Columbia (UBC) Research Centre of Excellence in Active Living for the Elderly (LILY), led by Professor Miao Chun Yan from NTU, will work with UCAS to develop potential applications in healthy ageing and education.

The partnership with RIKEN aims to leverage both institution’s deep scientific expertise and state-of-the-art research facilities to establish a joint research center each in Singapore and Japan. Under the three-year agreement, a RIKEN-NTU Research Centre for Human Biology will be set up at NTU Singapore while a corresponding NTU-RIKEN Research Center will be set up at RIKEN in Japan.

The initial research projects will focus on how the mind and body interact, as well as understanding various diseases, especially during the pre-clinical phase when important feasibility testing and data collection are conducted.

Professor Balázs Gulyás from NTU Singapore’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and Dr. Atsushi Iriki from RIKEN will serve as the Co-Directors of the research centers. Several projects have been identified, involving about 20 researchers as well as students at a later stage.

One initial study aims to discover the complex mechanisms of how the mind and body interact, including how social stress affects the microorganism ecosystem in the intestines and vice versa. The results would lead to more naturalistic therapies based on understandings of how our cognitive functions are closely linked to bodily physical states.

Leveraging chemical engineering technologies and biomedicine, a research group aims to develop novel biomarkers for early predictive diagnoses and treatment of diseases. The researchers will also apply artificial intelligence, such as machine learning or big-data processing, to patients’ digital medical records so that they can detect diseases early, before serious symptoms show.

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Source: Nanyang Technological University.
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