Eminent professor joins science hall of fame (hktdc.com)


	Professor Malik Peiris leads a team from the University of Hong Kong whose groundbreaking research is helping control viral pandemics

Bird flu and Sars expert Malik Peiris has joined a roll call of eminent scientists such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking, when he was recently inducted into the world's oldest national academy of sciences.

The chair professor of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and chief of virology at Queen Mary Hospital was one of 44 elected to the UK-based Fellowship of the Royal Society for their exceptional contributions. Professor Peiris was "honoured for his research into severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and other human viral infections that cause respiratory disease".

He and the HKU team discovered the coronavirus that caused Sars, which killed over 700 people worldwide in 2003. He was also involved in the response when Avian Flu hit Hong Kong in 1997, so he has been through two major health crises.

A great honour

A characteristically modest Professor Peiris, who was born in Sri Lanka, refused to claim sole credit. "It was an honour not just for me but for the whole Hong Kong University team of microbiologists. The Royal Society is one of the most prestigious and certainly the oldest in the world. I can't even think of comparing myself to Newton, Darwin and Hawking. These people are the real giants of science."

Hong Kong may be popularly perceived as an international financial and logistics hub but Professor Peiris stressed that Hong Kong also ranks very highly in scientific research.

"Our research papers on bird flu are the second most heavily cited papers globally, second only to those of Robert Webster who's known as the ‘father of influenza'. Certainly the world sees Hong Kong as a centre which kept Avian Flu under control. It was through the co-ordinated efforts of the Government Departments of Agriculture and of Health and the research team at HKU. Enhanced surveillance and proactive ‘evidence-based' interventions have kept Hong Kong free of the virus these few years when many of our neighbours have been affected. It is an excellent example of the appliance of science for very practical benefit," said Professor Peiris.

Hottest researcher

The HKU academic was also awarded the title “hottest researcher” after publishing nine highly cited “Hot Papers” on Sars, according to the March/April issue of Science Watch – the bi-monthly newsletter published by Thomson Scientific. A published work is identified as a “Hot Paper” if it has achieved a rate of citation in scientific journals that is markedly higher than papers of comparable type and age.

Growing up in Sri Lanka, the young Malik Peiris had no idea that he would be thrust into global limelight. “I was inspired by a book on Louis Pasteur, who is the father of modern microbiology. From that time, I was interested in science and research and especially in the field of microbiology.”

He added: “On my return to Sri Lanka after my doctorate at Oxford University, I was involved in setting up research programmes on mosquito borne diseases like Japanese Encephalitis. This was my introduction to the importance of the ecology in human health issues. It was good training for Avian Flu.”

World recognition

The Sri Lankan came to Hong Kong in 1995 to help start up the diagnostic virology laboratory at Queen Mary Hospital after spending seven years as a virologist at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, a WHO Reference Centre for Rapid Virus Diagnosis.

"The world recognition is very good for Hong Kong and HKU. It imparts the message that things can be done in Hong Kong. In this century, biomedical sciences are going to be the hub of knowledge-based economics. It is very important that more attention and more resources be put into research and development.

"Sars was a real challenge but it was controlled and it is not likely to be a major problem for the future. Avian Flu remains a big problem ahead and we should never be complacent," added Professor Peiris.