Professor Guan is the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Daniel CK Yu Professor in Virology, Professor: Chair of Emerging Viral Diseases, and Cluster Leader (Influenza and Infections of Public Health Significance) of Division of Public Health Laboratory Sciences at the School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong. He currently leads the programme “AI-Metagenomic Platform to Identify Emerging Pathogens” (Programme 2) at the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health.

His research focuses on the ecology, evolution and pathogenesis of influenza and other emerging respiratory viruses. Over the past decade, his research team has made ground-breaking and distinguished contributions to research in virology and to the control of emerging infectious diseases in China and the world.

Beginning in Year 2000, he initiated and organised a systematic influenza surveillance network, in human, swine, poultry and migratory bird populations, in Southern China. The information from this surveillance programme has provided the most comprehensive understanding of the ecology, evolution and dissemination of avian influenza viruses influenza viruses with pandemic potential worldwide.

Professor Lam is an Associate Professor of Division of Public Health Laboratory Sciences, School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong, and currently leads the programme “AI-Metagenomic Platform to Identify Emerging Pathogens” (Programme 2) at the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health.

His main research interest is the evolution, epidemiology and ecology of infectious diseases. He uses integrative genomic approach to determine the patterns, drivers and mechanisms of the emergence of pathogens at human-animal interface including influenza viruses and coronaviruses, as well as some bacterial pathogens and their antibiotic resistance emergence.

His research has contributed to important understanding of the origins, evolution and transmission of newly emerging pathogens such as H7N9 influenza (Nature 2013, Nature 2015), MERS coronavirus (EID2013, Science 2016) and COVID-19 coronavirus (Nature 2020). He is also leading the development of several computational methods and tools for the genomic analysis in the research community.

Professor Holmes is the Co-Principal Investigator of the programme “AI-Metagenomic Platform to Identify Emerging Pathogens” (Programme 2) at the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health.

He holds various academic and research positions at the University of Sydney and is known for his work on the evolution and emergence of infectious diseases, particularly the mechanisms by which RNA viruses jump species boundaries to emerge in humans and other animals. He currently holds an ARC Australian Laureate Fellowship. He has studied the emergence and spread of such pathogens as SARS-CoV-2, influenza virus, dengue virus, HIV, hepatitis C virus, myxoma virus, RHDV and Yersinia pestis.

Professor Zhu is the Co-Investigator of the programme “AI-Metagenomic Platform to Identify Emerging Pathogens” (Programme 2) at the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health.

She is a tenured Associate Professor at the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and an Adjunct Professor at the Shantou University (STU). She serves as Associate Director of the Joint Institute of Virology (STU/HKU) and the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases (HKU-Shenzhen Branch). She is also the Co-director of Joint Laboratory for International Collaboration in Virology and Emerging Infectious Diseases, Ministry of Education, China.

Her research field is focused on mechanisms that lead to the virus emergence at the human and animal interface. In the past few years, she has identified the zoonotic sources, transmission routes, evolutionary pathways and molecular basis leading to the genesis of multiple severe viral threats to human health. Her work was repeatedly accepted for publication in Nature and Science and ranked as Highly Cited Paper (n=8) or ESI Hot Paper (n=2).