Top medical school Karolinska Institute opens first overseas base in Hong Kong
Researchers hope to engineer artificial organs to replace failing ones
One of the world’s top medical institutes, the Karolinska Institute, has opened its first overseas base in Hong Kong, where stem cell researchers look to engineer human organs such as the heart, liver and brain.
The Stockholm-based university, which received a HK$400 million donation from property tycoon Lau Ming-wai, inaugurated its Ming Wai Lau Centre for Reparative Medicine at the Science Park on Friday. The research centre will focus on innovation in the fields of biomedical engineering, gene-editing, RNA technology and bioinformatics.
Dr Ronald Li, the centre’s executive director, said such research could potentially allow scientists to replace some failing human organs with new lab-grown organs constructed with stem cells.
Li said that with his own expertise, he could already create a heart out of someone’s stem cells.
“If I take some blood samples from you, you come back in a few months and you will see jars of the duplicates of your heart,” Li said.
He added that he was hoping to expand his research into the reconstruction of other organs with the help of KI.