Dr. Michael Chan received his PhD degree in Medical Science from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, followed by the post-doctoral fellowships in influenza virus and infectious diseases research at the University of Hong Kong in 2004.

Dr. Chan’s main research interests are the virus-host interaction and pathogenesis of influenza virus and coronavirus (included SARS and MERS) using ex vivo human respiratory explant cultures and in vitro well-differentiated human respiratory epithelial cells. Major focuses of his current work are: (1) Risk assessment of influenza virus and coronavirus using ex vivo explants and in vitro respiratory epithelial cells model. (2) Mechanism of lung injury upon severe influenza virus and coronavirus infection (3) Human airway and distal lung organoids development and application in infectious diseases (4) Role of human distal airway stem cells in respiratory epithelium regeneration upon influenza H5N1 virus, SARS and MERS-CoV infection. (5) Role of mesenchymal stromal cells in reverse influenza H5N1 associated acute lung injury (6) Novel therapeutic options for severe human influenza virus and coronavirus infection

Dr. Chan is ranked by Essential Science Indicator (ISI) as a “top 1% most-cited international scientist” in the world since 2009. He has published over 60 manuscripts; many of them are in high impact journals including Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Nature Medicine, PNAS, European Respiratory Journal, PLoS Pathogens, Journal of Virology, Respiratory Research and Gastroenterology which are among the top peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Dr. Chan has received research funding as a Principal Investigator from various local and oversea research organizations, including NIAID-CEIRS (USA), Theme-based Research Scheme, Area of Excellence Scheme and GRF (RGC, Hong Kong), ITF grant (ITC, Hong Kong), HMRF and RFCID (Hong Kong). Since 2005, Dr. Chan has secured research funding with a total amount of over HK$ 40 million. In addition, he has trained and currently training 14 postgraduate research students.

Dr. Chan has worked as the visiting scientists in the Department of Anesthesia and Medicine, Centre for Regenerative Studies, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco. Furthermore, he is the Associate Editor of Frontiers in Microbiology, Academic Editor of PLoS ONE, and the editorial broad member of the Open Journal of Respiratory diseases, International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Pathology and Medicine. He reviews manuscripts regularly for various international peer-review top tier journals.

In knowledge exchange, Dr. Chan has been coordinating the “Little Dr Flu” programme since 2013 (https://sph.hku.hk/en/advocacy/knowledge-exchange-activities/engagement-stories/little-flu-fighters). This KE programme has successfully promoted the awareness of microbial causes of respiratory diseases and HKU’s scientific/medical research program in infectious diseases among primary and secondary school students. Each year since its start, more than 240 students from over 15 primary and secondary schools have enrolled in the programme.