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ASIAN INNOVATION AWARDS: 2003 FINALISTS: ASIA'S
INVENTORS
From Sars to Solutions
Whether it's medical research or space-age, face-
and voice-recognition technology, regional scientists are at
the cutting edge of discovery
By Trish Saywell/SINGAPORE
Issue cover-dated
October 30, 2003
WHEN SEVERE ACUTE
Respiratory Syndrome, or Sars, struck the region in March,
doctors, research scientists and virologists worked around the
clock to understand the biology of the virus and to develop
innovative treatments for the disease. At the same time,
scientists collaborated with clinicians in hospitals and
partners in the private sector to develop accurate diagnostic
kits to detect the virus.
Much of that ground-breaking work took place in Asia. So
it's not surprising that several of the nominations this year
for the REVIEW's annual Asian Innovation Awards focused on
Sars-related research. For example, the Genome Institute of
Singapore carried out sequencing to determine the genetic code
of the virus and to study mutations. In less than three weeks,
the GIS completed the sequence of five different strains of
the virus and won international recognition for being the
first to publish mutation data in the prestigious medical
journal, The Lancet. The GIS then teamed up with Roche
Diagnostics to design tests to detect the presence of viral
particles. The diagnostic kit they produced can pinpoint the
Sars virus in patients before, or in the first days after, the
onset of the disease. Scientists at Singapore's Institute of
Molecular and Cell Biology, meanwhile, developed two
antibody-based Sars tests that generate results within 15
minutes using just a drop of serum or plasma.
Closer to the epicentre of the disease, new research in
Hong Kong provided the strongest evidence yet that the Sars
virus spread from wild animals. In May, researchers at the
University of Hong Kong and the Shenzhen Centre for Disease
Control and Prevention announced they had isolated Sars-like
viruses from palm civet cats and a raccoon dog at a
wild-animal market in Shenzhen. The viruses are 99.8% similar
to the ones that cause the respiratory illness in people.
Their discovery prompted authorities in China's southern
Guangdong province to begin enforcing a ban on exotic
animals.
Research on Sars was not the only innovative work to emerge
from Asia this year. As the nominations this year for the
awards illustrate, invention and innovation come from all
fields and are critically important in the complex and
ever-changing world in which we live.
Nominations this year are varied. There are energy-saving
devices such as an architectural system from Malaysia that
brings natural daylight into buildings with deep floor plans.
And there are medicine and health-care applications such as
the world's smallest heart pump from Singapore. Other ideas
include environmentally friendly products --witness the
recycling machine from Australia that can turn cardboard boxes
into wax logs that burn without smoke. "The diversity of
applications for the award was impressive," notes
Singapore-based Anthony Buss, chief executive of Merlion
Pharmaceuticals and one of the REVIEW's five judges. "The
winning projects were truly innovative and deserve their
place."
LIFE SAVERS
Among the other interesting
submissions this year was a latex glove from Taiwan that helps
women detect breast cancer by identifying lumps as small as a
sesame grain, and genetically engineered rice from Japan that
contains an ingredient therapeutic for diabetics as it helps
the body to secrete insulin.
On the hi-tech front, researchers in Singapore have
developed a face-recognition technology that promises to help
the global fight against terrorism. Existing face-recognition
technologies have error rates as high as 50% due to a mixture
of lighting conditions and uncontrollable face direction.
Inventors of FaceStar claim their technology has error rates
as low as 1% because it can synthesize a person's face from
any angle.
While not all of the nominations this year were hi-tech,
many certainly rank as high concept. There's Coconet, for
instance, a net-like contraption that prevents the lethal
consequences of falling coconuts--falling fruit kills an
estimated 150 people each year. Other entries include a kit
that teaches geometry to the blind and an underwater
bait-setting capsule invented by a New Zealand fisherman that
promises to save the lives of thousands of sea birds each
year.
One of the most important innovations in the field of
public health came from a scientist at Japan's Sumitomo
Chemical, who has developed a technology to fight malaria, a
disease that on average claims the life of a child under five
every 30 seconds. The scientist's new fibre technology allows
insecticide to be permanently woven into the polymer that is
used to make mosquito bed nets.
This means that the bed nets, which have a lifespan of
about four years, don't have to be re-treated with insecticide
every six months to a year like conventional
insecticide-treated nets. That's important in continents like
Africa, where less than 5% of the nets currently used are
properly treated or re-treated. And it's equally important in
Southeast Asia, where malaria still plagues many countries.
The nets are manufactured using a high-density polyethylene
resin and are more durable than conventional mosquito
nets.
"The effective use of insecticide-treated nets can reduce
mortality by at least 20% [in Africa], yet less than 15% of
all children and pregnant women sleep under a treated
bed-net," says Victor Chinyama, a spokesman for United Nations
agency Unicef in Nairobi, Kenya. With the help of the World
Health Organization, Sumitomo joined a public-private
partnership to make the nets in Africa and to bring their
costs down. The innovative partnership involves Sumitomo, a
Tanzanian bed-net manufacturer, the Acumen Fund, ExxonMobil,
and Unicef.
One of the most ground-breaking nominations this year comes
from the National University of Singapore and the Institute
for Infocomm Research. It is a gene chip-based analysis that
enables doctors to diagnose acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, the
most common childhood leukaemia. The beauty of the gene
chip-based analysis is that it will help doctors refine
therapies by identifying and stratifying the risk profiles of
each patient quickly, easily and cheaply. This means that
patients with a low risk of relapse won't be over-treated with
harsh chemotherapy that has serious side effects including the
reduction of IQ, and those with high risk will receive more
intensive treatment.
On the corporate front, Toshiba of Japan has developed a
sophisticated home robot that integrates voice-recognition and
voice-synthesis technologies so that it can recognize people
and talk to them. Kao, Japan's biggest maker of household
products, has come up with a cooking oil that has been tweaked
to make it harder for it to remain in the body because it is
burned as energy and not stored as fat. Meanwhile, in the
Philippines, Gold In Grass Corp. has invented a new machine
that distils enough lemon-grass oil from lemon grass to make
it a viable cash crop. This allows poor farmers to make a
living because lemon grass is cheap and easy to grow. And Hong
Kong's CK Life Sciences has developed a range of products that
use yeast strains and other natural ingredients to treat
pollutants in waste water.
"Innovation with good application in mind--as shown in the
nominations--is a very encouraging sign," says John Chen, one
of the REVIEW's panel of judges. "It shows a mini-Silicon
Valley culture is brewing in Asia."
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