This year, a virtual IMU Medical Biotechnology Day 2021 (MB Day 2021) with the theme “Biotechnology Innovation for Diseases” was organised with an e-poster competition, game sessions and an intriguing talk. The emphasis is on the application of innovative biotechnology tools to prevent, diagnose, and treat current diseases. Students from IMU’s Foundation in Science programme (FIS) and external students, nationally or internationally, were invited for the e-poster competition. Five finalists were selected to compete for the first, second and third prizes virtually on MB Day 2021, which was held on 24 April 2021. The final selection of the top three winners was a tough decision as the quality for all e-posters is top-notch. All the entries showed great effort, tremendous teamwork and collaboration amongst the team members, and they came up with creative and informative e-posters and presentations. The amount of research and effort undertaken by the students in designing and creating the e-posters were impressive.
| Top Five Finalists | |
|---|---|
| An international team from Bannari Amman Institute of Technology | Detection of Carcinogenic Carbide Fruits using Smart Kit |
| Three teams from IMU FIS 220 | Stem Cell Therapy |
| Magnetic Nanoparticles in Drug Delivery | |
| Nanotechnology in Cancer Drug Delivery | |
| One team from IMU FIS 120 | Monoclonal Antibodies |
| After a heated competition, the winners of the competition were | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| First Place | IMU FIS 220 team | ‘Magnetic Nanoparticles (MNPs) in Drug Delivery | The presentation demonstrated how biocompatible magnetic nanoparticles could be utilised to deliver therapeutic agents to target tumour sites with minimal side effects. This novel technology indeed brings good news to all cancer patients. |
| Second Place | IMU FIS 220 team | Nanotechnology in Cancer Drug Delivery | This team highlighted the benefit of nanotechnology in diagnosing and treating cancer and the advantages of this innovation over conventional cancer treatment. |
| Third Place | IMU FIS 120 team | Monoclonal Antibodies | They presented the technology of how monoclonal antibodies can be prepared and applied in the treatment of cancer, AIDS, COVID 19, arbovirus and fungal infection. |
Besides this competition, another highlight of the virtual MB Day 2021 is a talk on “Impact of Biotechnology in the Current Development of Economy and Healthcare” by our guest speaker Mr Jay Padasian. He is the director of Solution Biologics Sdn Bhd. and NuDawn Medihealth Sdn Bhd, and also plays a role as a non-executive director of Bioarc Asia Sdn. Bhd.; consultant for both the government and private sectors on healthcare bio-industry, vaccines, medical technology and industry hub development. He has over 25 years of experience within the healthcare and bio-industry and was involved in building the healthcare bio-industry at Malaysian Bioeconomy Corporation. Mr Padasian gave the audience an extensive future perspective of how biotechnology affects the world and economy, a game-changer with mind-boggling inventions for health care. Biotechnology is truly changing our world. Last but not least, MB Day 2021 has a few games sessions that left lots of laughter and brightened up the Saturday morning’s virtual event. Students genuinely enjoyed themselves while learning new knowledge simultaneously. There were 15 winners for the game prizes from national and international participants. All participants commented that they enjoyed the event and were able to gain a lot of knowledge regarding the every-day applications and amazing advancement of medical biotechnology.
