Organised by the Alumni Affairs and Development Office, the alumni webinar “Sherlock Holmes and John Watson amid Pandemic – Virus detection and tracing” was successfully held on 26 May 2022. Two alumni scholars were invited to “decode” the mysterious scientific letters in our life under COVID-19. They also talked about how their professions helped combat the virus and safeguard public health.
Prof. Yip Shea-ping, Professor and Head of Department of Health Technology and Informatics (HTI), began his presentation by explaining the everyday COVID-19 terms and various virus detection methods. He then shared his team’s innovation of a portable nucleic acid testing device, which enables fast and accurate results on-site to contribute to anti-pandemic measures.
Dr Gilman Siu, Associate Professor of Department of HTI and Limin Young Scholar in Medical Laboratory Science, told his behind-the-scene stories of identifying local transmission chains with his rapid whole-genome sequencing technique across the different waves of outbreak. He illustrated the “Geo-phylogenetic database for COVID-19 in Hong Kong”, and revealed his recent findings on variants and strains of the virus.
Dr Siu specially thanked his team for conducting whole genome sequencing round the clock since the first wave of COVID-19. We are also grateful to Prof. Yip and Dr Siu for their outstanding contributions towards the containment of virus.
The informative webinar drew many questions from the audience, including our MC Ms Lesley Tang, one of the HTI graduates. The event attracted around 250 registrations and was well received by the participants.
