Research Areas

Emergency Medicine Unit

https://emu.hku.hk/

Major Research Areas

Can be adapted in scope for Honours, Masters or PhD

Infectious Disease is the most common presentation in emergency departments worldwide and sepsis is the leading cause of hospital death.  The broad range of pathogens coupled with an equally broad range of immunological and inflammatory responses render this one of the most complicated fields of disease in man.  Our research team aims to obtain an in-depth understanding of the immune environment in infectious diseases and sepsis and to establish a new combination of multiple immunotherapies.

Using well-established, preclinical models, the student will investigate therapeutic efficacy and mechanisms of new anti-sepsis therapies.

In the proposed project, the student will learn the following research techniques:

1. The science of applied clinical and molecular epidemiology
2. The disciplines of translational research including discovery, utility (screening, primary prevention, detection, diagnostics, prognostics and therapeutics using novel and repurposed medications) implementation and economic benefits.
3. The science of developing, validating, refining and implementing novel patient focused diagnostic and prognostic pathways
4. In vivo murine models
5. In vitro cell culture
6. Molecular genomics, proteomics and lipidomics; comprehensive molecular profiling and integrative genomic studies, RT-qPCR, next-generation sequencing, expression microarray, methylation array and DNA SNP genotyping array.
7. Light microscopy and electron microscopy, immunofluorescence, Flow cytometry analysis

In collaboration with clinical laboratories, we will also investigate how immune cells are impaired in the infectious diseases microenvironment.