2021 Wing Tat Lee Award Recipients Announced

Announcing the 2021 recipients of the Wing Tat Lee awards, funded to establish educational and research collaborations between BUSM and Chinese universities (with a preference for Hong Kong).

Stephen P. Christiansen, MD, Professor and Chair Ophthalmology, in collaboration with Li Li, MD, Department of Ophthalmology at Capital Medical University, Beijing, and Kimberly Dukes, PhD, Biostatistics & Epidemiology Data Analytics Center (BEDAC), BU School of Public Health, will plan and initiate a multicenter randomized controlled study comparing Botox injection versus traditional incisional surgery for the correction of strabismus (misaligned eyes). The study will leverage the large patient base of the affiliated hospitals of Beijing Children’s Hospital across mainland China and the extensive experience of BEDAC in setting up and running international multicenter trials to address gaps in high-quality evidence to guide decisions.

Wendy Kuohung, MD, Associate Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology at Boston Medical Center, will collaborate with Shu Zhang, MD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, to study perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) levels in mother and newborn (cord) blood and placenta to determine any association of PFAS levels with preeclampsia, poor fetal growth and other disorders of placental perfusion. The project’s interdisciplinary team includes Joyce Wong, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, Jennifer Schlezinger, PhD, Associate Professor of Environmental Health at BU School of Public Health, and Sabra Botch-Jones, MS MA, Assistant Professor of Anatomy & Neurobiology and a forensic toxicologist at BUSM.

Nelson C. Lau, PhD, Associate Professor of Biochemistry, NEIDL research-affiliated faculty and Director of the BU Genome Science Institute, will collaborate with Chun Kit Kwok, PhD, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the City University of Hong Kong, to develop chemical structural probing of virus RNAs during infection of mosquito cell cultures. This collaboration will explore whether human pathogens like Zika and dengue viruses can form stable RNA structures that allow mosquito cells to tolerate these viruses.