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Winners of John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award share the motivations behind their achievements as world-class infectious diseases scientists. A Study In World-Class Opposites Feature Professor Malik Peiris and Professor Guan Yi could not be more different – Professor Peiris is calm, cool-headed and thoughtful, while Professor Guan is fiery, passionate and instinctive. But they have blended these qualities to the world’s benefit through their important research on emerging infectious diseases. Their work has deepened understanding about influenza viruses such as H5N1, H1N1 and H7N9 and the coronaviruses behind SARS and COVID-19, making each of them among the most highly cited scholars in their field. For their achievements, they were jointly awarded the prestigious 2021 John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award, which honours scientists whose discoveries have had a major impact on science and human health. Their journeys to their achievements, like their temperaments, have been highly divergent, starting in different countries and even different specialities. Professor Guan worked in paediatrics for 10 years, rising to the top of his field in Beijing before giving it all up to come to HKU in 1993 to study microbiology under Professor Ken Shortridge . His decision raised eyebrows even in the Faculty. ‘Ken said to me, you’re a senior doctor, you have a one in 10,000 chance to be a success in a new field, why give it up? I can only say that people always want to try new things. It gives you a new lease on life,’ Professor Guan said. ‘And if you don’t dream big, how can big things happen?’ That spirit would later take him tramping through live animal markets, at some personal risk, to collect samples of infectious viruses for his work. Professor Peiris took a more conventional path. He was fascinated as a teenager by Louis Pasteur, for a reason that is telling: ‘I was attracted by his logical approach to conceptual problems such as the germ theory of disease and the application of vaccinations to prevent infectious diseases,’ he said. This inspired him to become a researcher, studying in his native Sri Lanka and the UK before coming to HKU as a virologist in 1995. Professor Peiris’s steady, methodical approach has enabled him to successfully direct and manage large Areas of Excellence and Theme-based Research Scheme research projects. The two professors first came together, fittingly, against the backdrop of the world’s first outbreak of H5N1 influenza, which proved to be a harbinger of epidemics to come. This was in Hong Kong in 1997, when Professor Guan coincidentally had just defended his PhD dissertation at HKU before examiners who included Professor Peiris. Although that outbreak was brought under control, Professor Guan had a strong hunch that it was still circulating in southern China. With funding from US health agencies, a lab was set up at HKU to monitor emerging influenza viruses and both men were brought on board. 10