Dr. Jasper Chan Fuk-woo
Deputy Chairperson and Clinical Associate Professor
Department of Microbiology

Asia is a major hub for the spread of emerging infectious diseases with significant public health and socioeconomic impact. I was a Year 3 medical student at HKU in 2003, when Hong Kong SAR witnessed the devastating SARS outbreak, resulting in nearly 300 deaths. Since then, I have strived to devote my efforts to tackling emerging infectious diseases with pandemic potential, in particular those with special relevance in Asia.  

After obtaining my MBBS from HKU in 2005 and then undergoing postgraduate specialist training at the Department of Medicine and the Department of Microbiology at Queen Mary Hospital from 2006 to 2012, I joined the Department of Microbiology at my alma mater as Clinical Assistant Professor in 2013.   As a clinician-scientist managing infectious disease patients in Hong Kong SAR and mainland China, I am passionate about conducting impactful research to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and control of emerging infectious diseases.  My greatest strength lies in the ability to connect the bench to the bedside, i.e. integrating our laboratory work with diagnosis and treatments of patients in the hospitals.  I bring unresolved clinical questions to my basic research laboratory, where I use state-of-the-art disease models and technologies to generate translational results.   

Among emerging pathogens, I have been particularly interested in coronaviruses (CoVs). CoVs are enveloped positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses that have high mutation rates and adaptability to different host species. As a result, novel CoVs have repeatedly crossed species barriers and some have emerged as important human pathogens.   

MERS  
Since 2013, my lab has made novel discoveries in the diagnostics, treatments, and pathogenesis of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Our discovery of interferon-β1b and lopinavir-ritonavir as effective antiviral treatments for MERS in a non-human primate model (JID 2015) was included in the WHO MERS-CoV Global Summary and supported their clinical use during outbreaks and in a multicenter double-blind randomized controlled trial (NCT02845843). In 2017, I obtained my Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree with my thesis on MERS which was awarded the prestigious Sir Patrick Manson Gold Medal.   

COVID-19
During the COVID-19 pandemic, my lab made the following discoveries: 

Disease Modelling & Transmission: 
(1) I and my team reported the world’s first familial COVID-19 cluster that confirmed person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2, which resulted in major policy changes for controlling the pandemic worldwide (Lancet 2020) . This is the only study led by HKSAR-based scientists included in the “200 Years of The Lancet” timeline .
(2) We established the world’s first COVID-19 Syrian hamster model , which has now become one of the most commonly used COVID-19 animal models worldwide (CID 2020a). 
(3) Using this model, we showed that COVID-19 was transmissible by contact, airborne, and oral routes (CID 2020b, Cell Rep Med 2020) and provided the first in vivo evidence that surgical masks were effective in reducing non-contact transmission.
(4) We characterized the altered in vivo pathogenicity and species tropism of Omicron and other emerging variants ( Nature 2022a, Cell Rep Med 2022a, EBioMedicine 2021 & 2023), which helped to assess potential risks of emerging variants. 
(5) We established various in vitro and ex vivo culture models, including the world’s first human lung and intestinal tissue explant models for SARS-CoV-2, to answer diverse questions on COVID-19 (Lancet Microbe 2020, CID 2020c, CMGH 2021). 

Pathogenesis: 
(1) We characterized selection pressure by vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies on the relative competitiveness of Omicron and Delta (Science 2022), which helped to clarify how Omicron might have become the predominant variant globally.
(2) We discovered the roles of virus-induced apoptosis and other host factors (ie: caspase-6, metalloproteinases, and heparan sulfate) in CoV pathogenesis ( Nature 2022b, Nat Commun 2021, Sci Adv 2021 &2023). 
(3) We discovered that SARS-CoV-2 can induce inflammatory bone loss and testicular damage in vivo, alerting clinicians about these potentially neglected complications (Nat Commun 2022, CID 2022). 

Countermeasures: 
(1) We published one of the world’s first SARS-CoV-2 genomes (EMI 2020) which facilitated the design of molecular diagnostics (JCM 2020). 
(2) We exploited multiplex metal-detection-based method to establish highly multiplexing diagnostic platforms for COVID-19 (Chem Sci 2022 & 2023).
(3) We conducted drug repositioning studies to identify clinically available drugs with potent anti-CoV activities ( Nature 2021, Viruses 2020, Pharmacol Res 2020), including some (eg: clofazimine & interferons) that have progressed to clinical trials. 
(4) We discovered various enzyme inhibitors (Nat Microbiol 2021, Chem Sci 2021, Nat Microbiol 2022, Protein Cell 2022), lectins (Cell Rep Med 2022b), peptides (Cell Res 2022), and host- targeting antivirals (Sci Adv 2020, Cell Discov 2022, Int J Biol Sci 2022a & 2022b) as new candidate anti-CoV therapeutics. 

Overall, these translational research have directly impacted patient management and optimized strategies for controlling outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases, especially CoV infections.