HKBU Professor Zhang Lu secures over HK$1.9 million to build LLM-powered Chinese medicine education and information platform

Professor Zhang Lu, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science, has received HK$1,994,080 from the Chinese Medicine Applied Studies and Research Funding Scheme (B2 Scheme) under the Chinese Medicine Development Fund. The grant will support his research project, “現代科技賦能傳統醫學：大語言模型技術在中醫藥教育中的應用與研究”.

Backed by a strong interdisciplinary research team including prominent health scientists Professor Lyu Aiping, Vice-President (Research and Development) and Dr. Kennedy Y.H. Wong Endowed Professor in Chinese Medicine, and Professor Chris Chan Kam-wa, Assistant Professor of the School of Chinese Medicine, along with Dr Zhang Yusen from the Department of Management, Marketing and Information Systems and Dr Wang Jingjing from the Department of Computer Science, Professor Lu's project will construct a high-quality, dedicated Chinese Medicine knowledge base encompassing authoritative classical texts, modern textbooks, clinical guidelines, and research data. By adopting a multi-model collaborative framework, the project leverages large language models (LLMs) to process extensive Chinese medicine literature, clinical resources, and the deep semantics of ancient Chinese texts.

In addition, the platform features a clinical consultation simulation where LLMs act as virtual patients. This enables a comprehensive assessment of students' consultations and provides targeted feedback, effectively training their clinical reasoning skills.

The Chinese Medicine Applied Studies and Research Funding Scheme (B2 Scheme) provides funding for eligible institutions to conduct applied research in Chinese medicine. By advancing academic and clinical research in Hong Kong, refining industry guidelines and operational procedures, and fostering market understanding, the scheme promotes the legacy and innovative development of local Chinese medicine.

Professor Zhang's research profile: https://scholars.hkbu.edu.hk/en/persons/ERICLUZHANG