2024 Wing Tat Lee Awards Announced

Please congratulate the recipients of the 2024 Wing Tat Lee awards, funded to enhance collaborations between the school and Chinese universities (with a preference for Hong Kong).

Head and shoulders of Joseph ZaiaJoseph Zaia, PhD, professor of biochemistry & cell biology, will collaborate with Professors Juan Wei and Jianwei Zhu at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) to develop methods to accurately characterize EPO glycosylation to guide drug development. Erythropoietin (EPO) is a glycoprotein hormone that regulates red blood cells production. Customized glycosylation of EPO may improve drug potency.

Head and shoulders of Hui FengHui Feng, PhD, associate professor of pharmacology, physiology & biophysics, will collaborate with Dr. Yang Liang and Dr. Robert Peter Gale at Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, China, to study acute myeloid leukemia, a blood cancer with high mortality. Studies include how a protein expression may predict patient prognosis, and whether targeting this protein pathway can sensitize leukemia cells to treatment and improve the treatment outcome.

Head and shoulders Andrew TaylorAndrew Taylor, PhD, professor of ophthalmology, will collaborate with Dr. Wai-Kit Chu, Chinese University of Hong Kong, on uveitis research and vision science. A previously successful Wing Tat Lee-supported symposium in 2018 with Hong Kong University resulted in a sustained collaborative research program on diabetic retinopathy and retinal degeneration between Dr. Taylor’s lab and the laboratory of Dr. Amy Lo at Hong Kong University.