‘We have been preparing since the late 1990s, when H5N1 bird flu came to Hong Kong. Because of our success, we got more funding and that made us even better prepared for SARS.’ Professor Yuen Kwok-Yung microbiologist. That combination of skills is represented today by Professor Yuen whose team has discovered more than 80 new viruses during his career including the 2003 SARS-CoV-1 and its ancestral bat SARS-like coronavirus, human coronavirus HKU1, bat coronaviruses HKU4 and HKU5 which are closely related to MERS-CoV infecting camels and human for the last 10 years, and the porcine coronavirus HKU15 which is closely related to a pig coronavirus that has recently been reported to have jumped into Haitian children. ‘We have this great tradition at HKU that makes us successful. The Department of Microbiology is based in the Faculty of Medicine, not the Faculty of Science like in most other universities, and half of our staff are clinician scientists and half are basic scientists. We see patients and take relevant specimens from them so that we can discover new viruses in our clinical laboratory, and then immediately share them with our basic scientists for cloning, sequencing and characterisation in order to understand them better,’ Professor Yuen said. The emphasis on responding quickly has been cultivated by Professor Yuen among staff and students, including Dr Chan who was one of his students during the first SARS outbreak. ‘One thing Professor Yuen always emphasises is that timing is everything. With SARS-CoV-2, there must have been other hospitals seeing patients with an unknown virus, but they might not have the capacity to design diagnostic tests and gene sequencing. Within a few days, we were able to diagnose person-toperson transmission and Professor Yuen reported this to the government at the highest level,’ Dr Chan said. Preparation and strong teams of experts have also been essential ingredients to their success. ‘We have been preparing since the late 1990s, when H5N1 bird flu came to Hong Kong. Because of our success, we got more funding and that made us even better prepared for SARS. And after that more resources came in. All these ‘Our biggest hope is that what we find in the laboratory can improve the care of patients.’ Dr Jasper Chan Fuk-woo 9 HKUMed News Summer 2023
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