HKUMed News (Vol 27 | Issue 1)

‘Among all resources, human resources are the most important. One of my top goals will be to nurture and train the next generation of professoriate staff and physician scientists.’ Professor Leung Wing-hang FEATURE When Professor Leung Wing-hang took up his position as Chairperson of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine last year, he felt grateful to be coming home – he graduated from HKUMed more than 30 years ago – and to be leading a department that is widely respected for its research and education. He has defined his role around those strengths. ‘The Department is on a trajectory of many great successes, so I keep to two simple principles: one, do not fix something that is not broken, and two, do not boil the ocean,’ he said. Professor Leung speaks from strong experience in both academia and administration. After completing his PhD at Johns Hopkins University, he spent more than 20 years with St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where he rose to Chair of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. He subsequently spent several years with the biotech firm Miltenyi Biotec as Vice President of Clinical Development. His own trajectory has been based around developing novel transplant and immunotherapy approaches for paediatric cancer, blood, infection and immune disorders – a path that began at Queen Mary Hospital with a patient he encountered An Accomplished Scholar Comes Home during his housemanship. Professor Leung was tasked with taking care of a teenager admitted with acute megakaryoblastic leukaemia, who suffered greatly from complications caused by chemotherapy and ultimately died from his disease. ‘This patient inspired me to find a better way to treat cancer without the serious side effects of chemotherapy,’ he said. Professor Leung subsequently contributed to improvements in bone marrow transplants and cell therapies that have helped to achieve markedly better outcomes for children suffering from relapsed or persistent acute leukaemia. ↑Professor Leung Wing-hang (3rd from left) and members of the Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 兒童及青少年科學系 系主任梁永恆教授 (左三)及學系成員 8

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