Our meeting with the honorable guests ended with light and delicious refreshments along with the handover off gifts from our beloved Dean. Our guests were then also brought to visit some of our excellent facilities which includes the IJN-UTM CCE and the MeDiTEG Research Group

– Written By Dr Mohd Najeb Jamaludin –

One of the initiative to improve our curriculum in teaching and learning (T&L) is engaging with industry. Yesterday, FBME UTM academics together with Johor Biotalent Development Centre had discussion with Biocon Sdn Bhd’s scientists and bioprocess engineers. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss the current syllabus of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology subject. Few suggestions and ideas were discussed with the Biocon’s experts. We hope that this fruitful discussion will help us to fulfill the needs of industry from our graduates. Thanks Dr Khairunadwa Jemon, Dr Nik Ahmad Nizam and Ms Puteri Simaa & Mr Izran (JBiotech).

• Dr Mohd Helmi Sani, FBME, UTM

Salah satu mekanisme di bawah inisiatif Johor Bio Talent adalah membantu pihak institusi pengajian menambahbaik silibus sediaada bagi menjadikan silibus lebih berkait dengan industri. Mudah-mudahan, pelajar-pelajar akan lebih terdedah dengan ilmu dan keperluan dari industri, sekaligus menjadikan diri mereka bersedia untuk bekerja dengan industri.

Oleh itu Johor Bio Talent telah mengaturkan pertemuan antara Biocon Sdn Bhd dan juga pensyarah-pensyarah dari Fakulti Biosains dan Kejuruteraan Perubatan (yang berkepakaran dalam silibus Bioteknologi Farmaseutikal), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

Pihak UTM telah berkongsi garis panduan kursus Bioteknologi Farmaseutikal dengan pihak Biocon Sdn Bhd. Daripada situ, pihak Biocon Sdn Bhd telah memberikan input untuk menambahbaik kursus tersebut.

From Left: Dr Khairunadwa (UTM), Ms Puteri Simaa (JBiotech), Mrs Jasbir Kaur Sadusingh (Biocon), Mr Kanna Krishnan (Biocon), Dr Mohd Helmi Sani (UTM), Dr Nik Ahmad Nizam (UTM), Mr Izran Kamal

This CSR event is co-organized by UTM, Akademi Sains Malaysia (ASM) and Young Scientists Network Malaysia. ASM has been organizing NSC since 1999 to promote, nurture and enhance interest in science, technology and innovation among school students.

Our faculty involved in one of the Science Outreach Program called “Microbes Around us”.

“Science outreach programmes in conjunction with the Johor level National Science Challenge 2016. FBME opened up a session to teach the school kids how to culture bacteria, from their hands. Hopefully they will not forget to wash their hands before meals after this!

Congratulations SM Sains Batu Pahat for winning the Johor NSC, and will represent Johor at the national semi-final. Good luck guys!” – Dr Mohd Firdaus Abd Wahab –

Thanks to our students (UTM-YES) involved in this program:

1. NURUL HUSNA BINTI AB RAHMAN
2. CHAI PEI WEN
3. NURUL HIDAYU BINTI ABDUL KARIM
4. YEOH SIN NIE
5. TAN SING NGOH
6. YEO ZHIN LENG

And our staffs:

1. Dr. Mohd Firdaus Abdut Wahab
2. Dr. Mohd HelmiSani
3. Dr. Nurriza Ab latif
4. Dr. Nik Ahmad Nizam
5. Dr. Adibah Yahya
6. Pn Fatimah Harun

On 28^th – 29^th of March 2016, our faculty received a visit from eight students of SM Sains Sultan Iskandar, Mersing, Johor. The main objective of the visit was to seek advice and guidance in order for them to make successful innovative products. The completed products have been contested in the Malaysian International Young Inventors Olympiad 2016 (MIYIO 2016) from 1^st – 3^rd April 2016. MIYIO 2016 is an annual event organised by the Division of Residential School Management Cluster, Ministry of Education Malaysia. The aim of MIYIO is to bring together young scientists not only from all boarding schools in Malaysia but also schools adopted from outside Malaysia.

UTM has been known for its longstanding commitment to engaging and serving our communities. In the UTM ecosystem, Centre for Community and Industry Network (UTM CCiN) has a vital role in keeping these efforts on-going. UTM CCiN mission is to enhance university-community-industry collaborations by engaging the UTM’s academic resources in the enrichment of civic and community life in Malaysia. SM Sains Sultan Iskandar is one of the cluster schools that is under the supervision of UTM CCiN. Many programmes between the school and UTM have been done, with emphasis in the fields of science, technology and innovation.

Apart from that, Centre for Student Innovation (UTM CSI) also plays an essential role in the UTM network in planning and producing innovative generation. Initially, UTM CSI has been partnered with SM Sains Sultan Iskandar to get the students ready for participating MIYIO 2016. During the early stage, students from SM Sains Sultan Iskandar had presented their ideas which then were assessed by UTM CSI and Phd students from the Faculty of Science. The ideas were improved and refined not only to meet the MIYIO criteria but also to increase the impact of the products in our communities.

FBME was invited at the later stage to guide and coordinate the students in developing their innovation products. Seven of our academic staffs had agreed to take part as mentor. There were four teams altogether and each team was paired with respective mentors.

The two days programme started with an opening speech by Dr Nik Ahmad Nizam, Head of Department Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering. This was followed by the ice-breaking session and brainstorming of ideas between the students and their mentors.

After lunch, the students were taken to the research lab for them to develop their prototype or sample. During this session, the students were introduced with basic safety rules and regulations on working in a research lab. They were also being trained on how to be critical towards their own ideas or project. This is where their innovation and creativity skills are perfected.

On the second day, the students continued to refine their scientific report and poster. During the session, the mentors gave advice on how to set the exhibition booth and helped on the layout of their poster. They had also been taught on how to maximise the impact of their presentation and sharpened their self-confidence. At the end of the programme, each group successfully came out with their product.

The completed products were contested among 300 other products at MIYIO 2016 from 1^st – 3^rd April 2016. During the competition, 2 products won the bronze award; one received silver award and one won gold award. We were so delightful to know that the Monkey Repellent project, which had been awarded a gold award was also selected for the special judges’ award. The project again received a gold award in another competition which is i-ENVEX 2016 that was held on 8th – 10th April 2016.

We would like to congratulate all students for their determination and hard work. On behalf of the faculty, we hope that we have given you a glimpse of the immense and exciting world of innovation and scientific research. To all mentors, well done guys.

The value of idea lies in the using of it.

~ Thomas Edison~

Written by Dr Nurriza Ab Latif (14 Apr 2016)

18 Feb 2016, T02 Building, FBME, UTM – A briefing about Bioeconomy was given by a team from JBiotalent (Johor Bio Talent Development Centre) to our biology students (Year 1 to Year 3 of Industrial Biology and Biology courses). Thanks to Mrs Ratheega Silvarajan and Ms Puteri Simaa Megat Ismail from JBiotalent for your willingness and effort in ensuring our biology students aware and understand about bioeconomy especially in Malaysia perspective. Our faculty (FBME) has a close relation with JBiotalent because we are providing talents in biology area (Students) and JBiotalent matched us with biology industries. The aim of this collaboration is to increase our graduates’ employability.

 Sin Chew Daily – 16 March 2016

UTM Successful Invention – Asthma Severity Monitoring Tool for Children’s Usage

(Johor Bahru 15 Mac), Lecturer and students from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia has a new invention again. It is a developed asthma severity monitoring machine suitable for both adult and children’s use. It is expected to be a commercialized product within these few years.

The prototype has been under testing phase in a hospital in Penang for three months. Within a year, it will be submitted for registration under MDA and SIRIM so that the product can undergo another phase of testing in Australia.

Today, the faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering is organizing Innovation day, to exhibit the R&D products developed jointly by the faculty members and students. It is one of the newly developed tools.

The research team involves researchers from both Malaysia and Australia, consisting of UTM students lead by UTM lecturer Dr Malarvili Bala Krishnan(35 years).

Measuring Asthma Severity

Malarvili is currently a leader for the biosignal processing research group, UTM. When interviewed, she said her team spent two years to develop the tool. It will be commercialized after the testing is completed. She believe it might take at least two years or longer.

She said, patient with asthma will recover after being supplied with nebulizer.

This, however, is unable to measure the severity of the asthma problem. Currently available device such as peakflow meter and spirometer need to follow a set of instructions which require to blow as hard as possible to know the asthma severity level. Also, this device not suitable for children. The device created by UTM, known as exhalograph, however, measures the severity of ashma level when a patient is relaxed and breathing as comfortable as possible. It is also suitable for home use.

“The medical practitioners can use the tool to measure the severity of asthma patients, to assist diagnosis if it is necessary for admission to hospitals after treatment by doctors”

Earlier today, The faculty dean Prof Jasmy said, in the opening ceremony, that, when visiting Germany, he discovered the German universities focus on innovation and research, as the only way to contribute the advancement of the society.

Prof Jasmy encouraged the students to learn and move towards innovative and scientific research.

 China Press – 16 March 2016

UTM Research Team

Invents Asthma Severity Monitoring Tool

(Johor 15 Mac) Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) brings a good news for asthma patients! Research team from UTM, Skudai has developed a device to detect the asthma severity, which is suitable for both adult and children usage.

The inventors of this device are Dr Malarvili and her eight team members from the biosignal processing research group, Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering, whom were awarded gold medal in the Pecipta 2015 for this invention.

Three-month Testing Effort

Malarvili pointed out, the eight-member research team included doctors, professors of biomedical engineering and post-graduate students spent two years and app 230 thousands ringgits from both MOSTI and GUP grant to complete the invention.

She said asthma is a respiratory disorder that affects the lungs. It causes episodes of wheezing,

Breathlessness and chest tightness, which leads to the reduced exhalation of carbon dioxide. The invented tool therefore aims to detect the asthma severity by measuring the level of carbon dioxide exhaled by the asthma patients.

‘Currently, there are some asthma testing tool in the market such as spirometer, which however are not suitable for the use on children.

She said, the device is being tested for three months in a hospital in Penang. It is estimated the testing in Malaysia will be completed within a year, before undergoing another testing phase in Australian hospitals.

Dr Malarvili said, after the complete testing, the team then can apply for the commercial registration from MDA, before manufacturing into products.

She said, the exhibited prototype is the third version. The first version only involved the design of electronics, which is further improved with the incorporation of the breathing masks, resulting in the current version. The forth version will be completed in this year.

The breathing mask of the third version prototype is too large, which make it difficult for the patients to breath, the forth has reduced its size which only needs to insert two into nose.

Dr Muhammad Arshad Javed was invited as keynote speaker in 5th International Conference /10th National conference of Pakistan Phytopathological Society, November 23-25, 2015 at Institute of Agriculture Sciences, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. The theme of the conference was “crop protection for sustainable agriculture”. Dr Javed delivered a lecture on “Climate change, agriculture and rice production”. It was a review that how climate change affected the agriculture sector and its effects on rice production. His role as “overseas conference coordinator” was also important in this conference.

Congratulation to our undergraduate students (B.Eng in Medical Engineering), Ms. Lim Huey Woan and Mr. Mohd Syafiq Affendi under supervision of Dr. Jasmine Hau Yuan Wen who won the Innovate Malaysia Design Competition 2015 (IMDC 2015) Altera track champion, as well as the best of the best Innovate Malaysia Excellence Award with the project entitled “Throb: System-on-Chip (SoC)-based Arrhythmia Screener with Self Interpretation”. The IMDC 2015 is a multi-discipline engineering design competition open to all final year undergraduate engineering or computer science students in Malaysia. There are 7 individual tracks that open for competition which from Altera, Intel, Keysight, MathWorks, Microsoft, National Instruments, and SilTerra and judged by the industrial engineering experts.

CONGATULATION! You inspiring us.

More info in:

http://innovate.dreamcatcher.asia/winners2015.html

https://www.facebook.com/dreamcatcher.asia/posts/961120007280532

Congratulation to our Professor, Prof Dr Fahrul Zaman Huyop for being awarded as Diplomate of the Philippine Academy of Microbiology-(DPAM) on 17th Julai 2015, at the 44th Annual Convention Phillipine Society for Microbiology (PSM) INC. Mariott Hotel Manila.

Prof Fahrul is an active – LIFE member of the Society and has given a few Plenary talk in the previous Conventions. Philippines Academy Microbiology (PAM) was founded in 1991 and serves as the accreditation arm of the Philippine Society for Microbiology, Inc. (PSM). The aim of PAM is to facilitate accreditation of qualified members of PSM as Registered-, Specialist Microbiologists and/or Diplomates and Fellows.

This year 2015 Prof. Fahrul was the only candidate to receive this Award.

Congratulation Prof!

Congratulation to our undergraduate student, Teo Wee Siang (Bsc in Biology Industry) for being awarded with The IRES Excellent Paper award for the paper entitled “Effect of Surfactant Modified Zeolite (SMZ) added in Propagating Substrate for the Germination of Some Vegetables” for the category Best Presentation/Best Content at the IRES International Conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 16th July 2015. The award was given by The Institute of Research Engineers and Scientist during the The IRES – 2nd International Conference on Food and Agricultural Engineering. Congratulation!

From 24th September 2014 until 23rd March 2015, I had the opportunity to do a research attachment at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, under the supervision of Dr Anna Phillips in the School of Sport, Exercise & Rehabilitation Sciences. 

I planned this attachment since I registered for my PhD and from the very start, I started to look for a potential place suitable to my research area and put the plan into my research schedule. The main objective of this attachment was to obtain advice from the psychophysiological view in order to verify my research design, mainly in terms of the mental stress test protocol and in validating the results. I also aimed to gain deeper knowledge in statistical analysis methods that have been used in cardiovascular psychophysiological area and finally to write and publish journal papers under their guidance.  My main PhD work is  in Biomedical Signal Processing – applied to mental stress.  Therefore, it is important to understand the fundamental concepts of the psychological and physiological aspects of mental stress and learn the proper method of the data collection. This will lead to a high quality of research and accurate results.

Stress and Psychophysiology Reaction

During the attachment, I was assigned to work in the Psychophysiological Lab with other postgraduate and undergraduate students. I had the opportunity to involve in several ongoing projects studying the impact of stress on the cardiovascular system and physiological stress reactivity. I also learned about the stress test protocol and the way to conduct the test.

The biggest outcome from this attachment is that I managed to complete the data collection for my PhD through collaboration with the postgraduate and undergraduate students there as well as with close guidance by Dr Anna Phillips. Basically, we did a stress test using an established mental stress task named PASAT (Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test) and we measured physiological data using Electrocardiogram (ECG), salivary cortisol, blood pressure and heart rate during the experiment.

For my PhD, I analyzed the collected ECG data by computing a derived signal from ECG known as Heart Rate Variability (HRV). All the signal processing work will be done using the MATLAB software. Consequently, this will be my contribution in this collaboration work since they only looking at the other physiological responses i.e. BP, HR, cortisol. They using a software in order to analyze the ECG which as we know have its own limitation. Besides, I also got to learn on how to analyze results statistically using SPSS which was a challenge for me, but it was still a good experience.

Courses and Training

I was very fortunate to come to this University because there are a numbers of free courses and training provided for their students. Not wanting to miss out, I grabbed the chance to join these courses. One of my favorite  was the writing course. They divided the course into three sessions with different aims. Unfortunately, I only managed to attend two sessions since the last one was not available during my attachment period. The Writing Skills 1 is about starting to write and the Writing Skills 2 is about how to structure our thesis. Additionally, I also joined other training such as English for International Students, Notes Taking, Research Data Management, Presentation Skills and several courses about SPSS.

United Kingdom
Having the opportunity to travel across the continent, don’t miss out on the chance to visit the country. I myself got to visit some famous sites in England, Wales and Ireland. It was such a wonderful journey and experience, because we can see the difference in the culture, environment, weather as well as the attitude of the local people with our very own eyes.

Malaysian Community

There are quite a number of Malaysians in Birmingham which unite under the Malaysian Community in Birmingham (MCiB). This community might be helpful especially upon arrival at this country since the members provide assistance from touch down at the airport until all arrangements are settled before we embark on our study or work. Activities organized by this community such as Hari Raya event, will definitely help cure the longing to be back home in our beloved country, Malaysia. But do not be afraid to mix around with the local people as well as the other foreigner because that is the purpose for travelling a thousand miles away from our country.

Muslim Community

Worried about practicing Islam in a non-muslim country? No you shouldn’t be. The Muslim community in UK is increasing year by year. There are about 155 mosques just in Birmingham. They also organize activities like talks, Quranic classes, Arabic classes, and Aqidah classes; and if you gave the opportunity, do join these classes. What we can learn from the multi-background Muslim as a minority in this country is so valuable. The most important thing is we learn how to respect other Muslim’s way of practicing Islam due to the different sects. We also have to learn about practicing our daily rituals such as prayer, ablution and having meals in a constrained situation.

The Challenges

Being away from our family is the biggest challenge for most of the people. Apart from this, dealing with the extreme weather is also challenging. Language barrier is also something you need to be prepared for at the beginning of your attachment period if your mother tongue is not English; but some English people admit that they themselves also having difficulty in understanding the Birmingham accent. They pronounce most of the English words differently but not to worry because in time you will get used to it and enjoy living there!

The Journey Continued

Now, I am back in Malaysia, continuing my PhD journey. Thank you very much to University Teknologi Malaysia for giving me this golden opportunity. The knowledge and experience gained will definitely help and inspire me to do well for my PhD.

By,

Noor Aimie Salleh,

PhD in Biomedical Engineering, FBME, UTM.

Tutor, FBME, UTM.

Editor,

Izwyn Zulkapri

Date: 22 April 2015

Venue: Dean Meeting Room, Level 3, V01

Thanks to three Professors coming from the University of Tokushima, Japan. They are Prof Dr Yasuhiko Kawamura (Professor of Chemistry), a Dean of Faculty of Engineering, Prof Dr Akihiko Tsuji (Professor of Biological Science and Technology), an advisor to the President for University Reform and Associate Prof Dr Teruaki Ito, Assoc Prof of Institute of Technology and Science. The main purpose of the visit is to seek opportunities in research collaboration. This faculty (Faculty of Bioscience and Medical Engineering, FBME, UTM) shares several similarities with the research area in the Tokushima University such as biological science, biotechnology, chemistry, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, medical engineering etc. The meeting was held in the Dean Meeting Room, V01. The representatives of FBME were Prof Dr Fahrul Zaman Huyop (Deputy dean of Research and Innovation, FBME), Dr Ahmad Zahran (Deputy Director  of IJN-UTM Cradiovascular Engineering Centre), Dr Tan Tian Swee (Researcher in IJN-UTM), Dr Norahim Ibrahim (Academic Manager for Undergraduate), Assoc Prof Dr Kahar Osman (Head of Department Clinical Sciences), Assoc Prof Dr Zaharah Ibrahim (Head of Department Boscience and Heath Science) and Dr Nik Ahmad Nizam (Head of Department Biotechnology and Medical Engineering).

Meeting with University of Tokushima, Japan

These are some outputs from the meeting:

1. Objective of the visit
   1. To know more about FBME.
   2. To find opportunities in research collaboration in biosciences and medical engineering area.
2. To know more about this university, go to http://www.tokushima-u.ac.jp/english/
3. They also have Faculty of Medicine http://www.tokushima-u.ac.jp/english/department/faculty/medicine.html
4. They have started collaboration with UTeM and they call it TMAC.
   1. With this collaboration, they organizing annual Symposium of TMAC for various fields of researches and they asked if there are opportunities to collaborate in organizing this symposium.
   2. Next symposium will be held on March 2016 at UTeM, Melaka.
   3. From this collaboration, several UTeM staffs will have opportunities in doing research activities at Tokushima University for one year.
5. Tokushima University and also UTeM also organizing IDECON.
   1. IDECON: International Conference on Design and Concurrent Engineering 2015
   2. Date: 6-7 Sept 2015
   3. Venue: Tokushima, Japan.
   4. Brochure about this conference is attached here.
6. They encourage us to join the symposium and conference and also they give us opportunity to collaborate with them in any research fields related to bioscience or medical engineering.

Thanks to the visitor

It is hoped from this meeting that there will be future research collaboration between FBME, UTM and the University of Tokushima for the purpose of the betterment of our human life through innovative research outputs and through interdisciplinary researches (bioscience, medical and engineering).

On 4th and 5th February 2015, Professor David Hukins has visited FBME. He is an Emeritus Professor at University of Birmingham UK. The visit has been arranged and conducted by Dr Siti Pauliena Mohd Bohari. He spent 2 days for reviewing our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the faculty and at the same time touring all laboratories in the V01 and T02 buildings.