MALAYSIAN UNIVERSITY BAGS FIVE AWARDS AT BRITISH INVENTION SHOW

PENANG (Malaysia), Oct 20 (Bernama) -- Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has
bagged five awards at the British Invention Show 2009, with all its three
entries by postgraduates winning gold medals and two of them winning two other
awards.

The inventions were a new synthetic composite for injectable bone
replacement material developed by Chew Kuan Khoon, a novel route for the
conversion of waste polymers into fuels and chemical feedstocks by Steven Lim
and a potential novel malaria vaccine containing blood stage specific epitopes
by Seah Tiong Chai.

USM acting Vice-Chancellor Prof Omar Osman said Chew's entry also won him
the world invention award and Lim's entry also garnered him a special award from
Romania.

"We believe in funding young researchers in conducting their research and
this is their success result, especially on the international stage," he told
reporters after welcoming them at the Penang International Airport in Bayan
Lepas in this northern state Tuesday.

USM had entered the largest innovation and technology exposition held from
Oct 14 to 17 for the first time, and was the only university in the competition
which had more than 300 researchers from 15 countries as the participants.

All the three products had won the National Research and Innovation
Competition (NRIC) last May.
-- BERNAMA