Yuen Kwok-yung (born 30 December 1956 in Hong Kong), whose family roots are in Guangzhou, Guangdong, is a Hong Kong microbiologist, physician and surgeon, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a recipient of the Gold Bauhinia Star. He graduated in medicine from the University of Hong Kong in 1981 with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery and later earned a doctorate in medicine. After working at United Christian Hospital and Queen Mary Hospital he began microbiology research at Queen Mary Hospital in 1987 and joined HKU's Department of Microbiology in 1989. He became director of the HKU Pasteur Research Centre in 2000, was head of the microbiology department from 2001 to 2011, and in 2005 was appointed the Henry Fok Professor in Infectious Diseases and the founding director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases. During the 1997 H5N1 avian influenza outbreak he was the first to report the virus's unusual severity in The Lancet, alerting the international community. In the 2003 SARS outbreak he led the HKU team that used electron microscopy to identify the pathogen as a novel coronavirus, and he was the first to confirm that SARS was caused by a coronavirus; the team also developed a rapid molecular diagnostic test that helped bring the outbreak under control, and that year he was named one of Time Asia's Asian Heroes. In 2005 he found that Chinese horseshoe bats carry a SARS-related coronavirus, an important clue in the search for the virus's natural reservoir. Yuen's research covers coronaviruses, influenza viruses and other emerging infectious diseases, and over the years he has discovered and characterised many novel viruses in patients and animals, including the human coronavirus HKU1 reported in 2005, with close to 800 papers to his name. He was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2007 and is also a founding member of the Hong Kong Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and a member of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2020 he was appointed to the National Health Commission's high-level expert group on COVID-19 and travelled to Wuhan, warning early in the outbreak that the virus could spread between people, and he has since spoken regularly to the public and the government about control measures; in 2021 he shared the Future Science Prize in Life Sciences with Malik Peiris for the discovery of SARS-CoV-1 as the causative agent of the SARS outbreak, and he has received both the Silver and Gold Bauhinia Stars. He is Chair Professor of Infectious Diseases at HKU and the Henry Fok Professor in Infectious Diseases, and has long taken part in infectious-disease policy in Hong Kong and the region.
During the 1997 avian-influenza and 2003 SARS outbreaks, Yuen Kwok-yung was among the first to report the virus's severity and led the discovery of the SARS coronavirus, and he later established bats as an important source of novel coronaviruses. He has long directed microbiology research at HKU, with a direct bearing on infectious-disease control in Hong Kong and the region. In 2020 he took part in the national assessment of the COVID-19 outbreak, and in 2021 he received the Future Science Prize. His work has raised Hong Kong's international standing in emerging infectious diseases.
Achievements
- 1997 · Was the first to report the unusual severity of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, in The Lancet.
- 2003 · Led the team that discovered the SARS coronavirus.
- 2005 · Found that Chinese horseshoe bats carry a SARS-related coronavirus and became co-director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases.