HKU Bulletin April 2006 (Vol. 7 No. 2)

34 35 Professor Lo Chung Mau Professor: Chair of Hepatobiliary Surgery P rofessor Lo’s area of research is liver disease, and he has a special interest in liver cancer, liver transplantation for hepatitis B and living donor liver transplantation. All of these subjects are of particular importance to Hong Kong because of its high rate of hepatitis B infection, high incidence of liver cancer, and shortage of deceased organ donors. His team pioneered the application of living donor liver transplantation in adult patients by performing the world’s first right lobe liver transplant in 1996. This breakthrough helped to resolve a crisis caused by a shortage of organs, and has had a major impact on the development and practice of liver transplantation worldwide. In 2004 Professor Lo received a Croucher Foundation Senior Medical Research Fellowship to support his research into the prevention of hepatitis B after liver transplantation. Although he finds lengthy hospital operations physically tiring, he continues to give as much time as he can to his research, and remains personally in good shape. In November 2005 he took part in the annual Trailwalker event, and completed the 100 kilometre Maclehose Trail in the impressive time of 22 hours. chungmlo@hkucc.hku.hk Outstanding Researcher Award The Outstanding Researcher Award is conferred for exceptional research accomplishments of international merit. Dr Billy Chow Kwok Chong Associate Professor, Department of Zoology D r Chow is an internationally-recognized endocrinologist, with a distinguished publication and grant record. He has recently received the Grace Pickford Research Award, an honour bestowed by the International Federation of Comparative Endocrinology Societies, and has been made a Croucher Senior Research Fellow. His laboratory was the first in the world to substantiate the neuroactive functions of secretin in the central nervous system, and has recently demonstrated the pleiotrophic activity of secretin in the pituitary, kidney, testis and liver. Dr Chow believes that an outstanding researcher is someone who has the intuition to see the beauty of simplicity amongst the most complicated pathways and networks in biological and physical systems. He himself is not only a distinguished researcher but also an accompl ished tango dancer, and represented Hong Kong in the Taiwan International Tango Festival 2005. bkcc@hkusua.hku.hk http://www.hku.hk/zoology/staff/bc/bc.html Outstanding Researcher Award