Medical Faculty News v25i1

Pseudo-colour scanning electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 grown in culture from a patient isolate. After 24 hours in culture there are large numbers of orange viral particles on the surface of the cell (blue). Image courtesy of the LKS Faculty of Medicine (HKUMed), Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (K.Tsia, K.Lee and Q.Lai), and Electron Microscopy Unit, The University of Hong Kong. Stop Press HKUMed has been at the forefront of the global effort to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, providing the earliest assessments of the disease’s spread and transmission, characterising the culprit SARS-CoV-2 virus, and giving timely advice to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Hong Kong and other governments and local and international media. “The world is facing the biggest threat in living memory to health, wellbeing, social welfare and the economy,” said the Dean, Professor Gabriel Leung (梁卓偉) . “International solidarity is an essential response and HKUMed has been able to make significant contributions on the strength of our investments in emerging infectious disease research since SARS in 2003.” The investments include the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases, WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control, WHO H5 Reference Laboratory and two P3 (biosafety) laboratories. HKUMed scientists harnessed these resources to position the Faculty as a world leader in the field long before Covid-19 appeared and are now focusing all efforts on this new viral threat. A brief summary of HKUMed’s Covid-19 research highlights is provided on these pages, together with our activities in raising community preparedness and aware- ness and adapting our educational programmes to social distancing requirements. More research advances will be forthcoming as the global battle to control the virus con- tinues apace and shared, along with our experts’ advice, through the mass media and our social media platforms. HKUMed’s Rapid Response on COVID-19 05 Medical Faculty News