Singapore: The Office of Public Affairs, Academia Sinica, held an event to present the outcomes of the latest discoveries by researchers at Academia Sinica to prospective business partners.

The event introduced 50 of the latest research developments at Academia Sinica. Thirty one of these discoveries presented this year were related to pharmaceutical biotechnology and agricultural biotechnology, and a further 19 related to precision instrumentation, optoelectronics, and information technology. Over 60 representatives from business and industry participated in the event, which helps to build cooperative relationships between the academic community and business sectors.

While vice director of the Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology, Dr Han-Chung Wu, presented the generation of novel five epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) antibodies including EpAb2-6 (that can induce cancer-cell death and inhibit tumor growth), Dr Nan-Shih Liao from the Institute of Molecular Biology presented a novel method for the generation of human interferon-producing killer dendritic cell (IKDC)-like cells with anti-tumor activity.

Moreover, Dr Chia-Fu Chou from the Institute of Physics, released well-received findings outlining a new approach, termed molecular dam, for ultrafast protein enrichment (100,000 fold in 20 seconds) in nanofluidic channels under physiological buffer conditions.

He presented three related advanced nanotechnological platforms, including a nanofluidic system to identify specific binding locations of proteins along genomic DNA molecules with sub-100 nm resolution.