Dr. Jasper Fuk-woo CHAN
Department of Microbiology
The University of Hong Kong
Biography
- Clinical Associate Professor in Department of Microbiology at The University of Hong Kong
- Research focuses on the diagnosis, treatment and control of emerging infectious diseases with pandemic potential
- RFS project — to investigate the pathogenesis and broad-spectrum treatment strategies of coronavirus infections through a multimodal approach
- Awards and Honours:
- RGC Research Fellow (2024)
- HKU Outstanding Young Researcher Award (2021)
- The State Scientific and Technological Progress Award (Second-class Award) (2019)
Project Title
- Multimodal Investigation of Pathogenesis and Therapeutics of Coronavirus Infections: Preparing for the Next Pandemic
Award Citation
Dr. Jasper Chan’s research focuses on the diagnosis, treatment and control of emerging infectious diseases with pandemic potential. He has published >330 journal articles in these areas with >40,000 citations, including (co-)first/corresponding-author publications in The Lancet, Science, and Nature. Dr. Chan has been consistently ranked by Clarivate as one of the world’s top 1% scholars by citations since 2015 and as a “Highly Cited Researcher” (2 fields: “Microbiology” and “Immunology”) since 2021. He was elected as Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in 2022 and as Member of the Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences in 2024.
Dr. Chan has received a number of research awards, including RGC Research Fellow Scheme (2024), the 8th VCANBIO Award for Biosciences and Medicine (Innovation Breakthrough Award) (2023), HKU Research Output Prize (2020-21, 2021-22 & 2022-23), HKU Outstanding Young Researcher Award (2021), Prize for Best Original Research by Young Fellows of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine (Gold Medal) (2021), Biomedicines Young Investigator Award (2021), Pathogens Young Investigator Award (2021), Lo Ying Shek Chi Wai Foundation Award for Young Investigator (2020), the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award (Second-class Award, 2019), the Health and Medical Research Fund Most Promising Young Researcher Award (2019), and the Chinese Medical Science and Technology Award (Second-class Award, Chinese Medical Association, 2018).
Dr. Chan’s team reported the world’s first familial cluster of COVID-19 that confirmed person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2, which resulted in major control policy changes globally (Chan et al., Lancet 2020: 1 of 34 articles highlighted in the “200 years of The Lancet” timeline). His team also established the world’s first COVID-19 Syrian hamster model, which has become one of the most commonly used COVID-19 animal models worldwide. This RFS project exploits a multimodal approach to investigate the pathogenesis and broad-spectrum treatment strategies of coronavirus infections.
