InnoHK@HKUMed
Centre for Virology, Vaccinology and Therapeutics (CVVT)

Epidemic infectious diseases pose grave risk and burden to our medical service and public health systems of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area of China. These infectious disease outbreaks cause significant morbidity, mortality, socioeconomic disruption and damage to the image of good governance. 

Proactive and effective “surveillance and control” of these outbreaks relies on the comprehensive knowledge of the viruses circulating in animals and human, reliable prediction of the potential of these animal viruses to jump interspecies barrier from animal to human, highly-multiplex diagnostic tests for rapid detection of these viruses in healthcare and field setting, broad spectrum antivirals for prophylactic and therapeutic treatment, and most importantly, a safe and towards-universal vaccine platform with heterologous protection against antigenically drifted viruses. The Centre for Virology, Vaccinology and Therapeutics (CVVT) is set to provide these conditions.

The Centre is led by Professor KY Yuen (Managing Director and Scientific Director). A number of research programmes are developed under the Centre to achieve the above objectives:

1. Vaccines
   Programme Leaders:
   • Professor HL Chen
   • Dr Kelvin KW To
   Key Research Staff:
   • Professor DY Jin
   • Dr Anna Zhang
   • Professors from overseas institutes
2. Bi-specific Neutralising Antibody Platform for Viral Pathogens
   Programme Leader:
   • Professor ZW Chen
   Key Research Staff:
   • Professor HL Chen
   • Professors from overseas institutes
3. Antivirals Targeting Host Factors
   Programme Leader:
   • Dr KH Kok
   Key Research Staff:
   • Dr H Chu
   • Dr SF Yuan
   • Professors from overseas institutes
4. Antivirals Targeting Viral Factors
   Programme Leader:
   • Dr Jasper FW Chan
   Key Research Staff:
   • Dr Richard YT Kao
   • Dr KH Kok
   • Dr HJ Zhao
   • Dr J Zhou
   • Professors from overseas institutes