A product named ‘Golden Wound Dressing’ developed by an entrepreneurial team in Chinese medical sciences from the University of Macau (UM) won a gold award at the Third China College Students’ ‘Internet+’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition. Zhang Zhe, a representative of the UM team, along with the representatives of other winning teams, was received by China’s Vice Premier Liu Yandong. During the meeting, Zhang told Liu about the team’s business plan to develop Chinese medicine.
This year’s competition attracted a total of 370,000 teams formed by more than 1.5 million university students. The UM team was formed by four master’s students, namely Zhang Zhe from the Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences (ICMS), who is also the team captain; Wu Tong from the Faculty of Business Administration; Fang Rui’an from the Faculty of Law; and Ma Baoyuan from the Faculty of Social Sciences. Their supervisor is Assistant Professor Wang Chunming from the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine (SKL-QRCM). Their entrepreneurial advisor is Dr Wang Minchuan, an external member. The product is a new type of wound dressing. It is based on the findings of Wang Chunming’s research team from the SKL-QRCM. By integrating the healing properties of traditional Chinese medicine with cutting-edge nanofabricating technology, the research team successfully endowed the biomaterial with favourable physical properties, such as fluid absorption capacity, and proved its biological effects, such as the promotion of haemostasis, cell proliferation, and eventually wound healing, in a series of studies. Certain polysaccharide components are proven to be essential in the healing properties of this dressing material. The team earlier won the championship at the Bank of China Trophy One Million Dollar Macao Regional Entrepreneurship Competition and an excellence prize at the national final of the One Million Dollar International Entrepreneurship Competition. The awards are testament to the entrepreneurial skills of UM students.
Established in 2002, the ICMS attaches great importance to nurturing students with independent thinking and innovation skills. Over the past 15 years, students from the ICMS have won first prizes four times and second prizes five times at the Challenge Cup, as well as a second prize at the HKUST One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2016. The ICMS was also the only institution from Macao to win an award at the China Adolescents Science and Technology Invention Contest 2014. Many ICMS graduates are now working in companies in the field of medical technology in China and abroad. Wang Yitao, director of the ICMS and SKL-QRCM, says that winning a gold award at the Third China College Students’ ‘Internet+’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition is encouraging news and will create better conditions for students to transfer their research results. He adds that the institute will continue to produce more innovative and interdisciplinary professionals in Chinese medicine, which is in line with the goal of the state-key lab to promote Chinese medical sciences and the development of health products.