Prof. Yuen Kwok-Yung is a world renowned microbiologist and expert in infectious diseases; he is currently the Chair of Infectious Diseases & Henry Fok Professor in Infectious Diseases at the Department of Microbiology of the University of Hong Kong and Service Director (Pathology) of the Queen Mary Hospital; he also co-directs the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases of China in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the P.R.C. In 2007, he was elected Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (Basic Medicine and Health), he became a Founding Fellow of the Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong in 2015 and Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2019. He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (Lond, Edin), Surgeons(Glas) and Pathologists(UK).

Prof. Yuen is mainly interested in research of microbial hunting and novel microbes in emerging infectious diseases. In the outbreak of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection in Hong Kong in 1997, he was the first to report in medical journal Lancet about the unusual clinical severity and high mortality of infected patients, which were identified by the in-house molecular test at his laboratory. During the 2003 global outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Prof. Yuen led his team in the discovery of the SARS coronavirus, for which he was honoured as “Asian heroes of the year” by TIME Magazine Asia. Subsequently, his work on novel microbe analysis and agents of emerging infectious diseases has led to the discovery of over 60 types of new viruses, 10 new bacteria, 4 new fungi and 2 new parasites, including bat coronavirus HKU4 and HKU5, which are believed to be the origin of the coronavirus MERS.

Born in Hong Kong, Prof. Yuen graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong in 1981. As a critically acclaimed scholar who grew up in Hong Kong with a keen eye for microbes, he is deeply attached and grateful to Hong Kong and has devoted himself to pursue medicine to contribute back to the homeland. He is a member of the Advisory Council on Food and Environmental Hygiene and the Avian Influenza Expert Panel of the Department of Health of Hong Kong. Prof. Yuen has published over 900 journal papers and has been cited more than 36,000 times by his peers. His publications mainly involve identifying new types of microbes or emerging infectious diseases. After many years’ clinical studies and laboratory training and practices, he established the infectious disease service and rapid molecular diagnosis for cytomegalovirus and tuberculosis at the Queen Mary Hospital, the teaching hospital of the University of Hong Kong. In 2017, he was awarded the special prize of the State Scientific and Technological Progress Special Awards for his research work in “Major Innovation and Technological Breakthrough in the Prevention and Control of Human Infection with H7N9 Avian Influenza”.