Dr. King Ming Chan is an Associate Professor of School of Life Sciences and Director of Environmental Science Program, Faculty of Science, Chinese University. His research focuses on Aquatic Toxicology and Molecular Endocrinology using fish models. Recent studies are mainly on transgenic fish over-expressing somatolactin hormone for functional study and use of biomarkers of exposures to study the risk of environmental contaminants including pesticides, trace organics, nanoparticles, and metal ions in waters. Dr. Chan also studies the regulation of eukaryotic gene expression and transcription, focusing on understanding how metal-regulatory-element-binding transcription factors (MTFs) control metallothionein genes and how Pit-1s control pituitary polypeptide hormone genes.

Dr. Ting-Fung Chan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences, and the Deputy Director of the Centre for Microbial Genomics and Proteomics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the Coordinator of the CUHK iGEM team. His researches mainly focus on genomics and bioinformatics of microbial pathogens and complex human phenotypes. He enjoys talking about science, but even more so for toys: Mindstorms NXT, RX-178, 5D Mk-II, LX200-ACF, YAS-875EX, and iGEM. He wishes his students would comprehend the fun and excitement of all aforementioned, but if that is not possible then at the very least, iGEM.

Dr. Kevin Yio is an assistant professor in the Deprtment of Computer Science and Engineering of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has been researching in the field of bioinformatics for 9 years, since he was a graduate student first in Hong Kong and later at Yale University. He is particularly interested in modeling and studying the interactions of biological objects in large-scale networks, such as protein-protein interaction, gene regulatory and metabolic networks. His major role in the CUHK iGEM team is to introduce the competition to engineering students, recruit interested and committed individuals, and help them to enrich the engineering aspects of the project.

Dr. Douglas Yung is an Assistant Professor in the CUHK Biomedical Engineering Program. He has been intrigued by biosensing and electronic interfacing of living cells since graduate school. On the biosensing side, his research group is developing technologies for rapid viability assessment of superbugs using a combination of electrochemical, optical techniques and MEMS devices. His team is also developing methods to interface living microbes with electronics at a micro- and nano-scale. As for this year’s iGEM, he primarily provides support on the device and engineering side.

Our laboratory studies the process of apoptosis. During apoptosis, enzymes such as caspase become active and orchestrate the death of the cell. One mechanism of caspase activation involves the release of cytochrome c and other apoptosis-inducing factors from damaging mitochondria.

In particular, we are interested in elucidating how mitochondria regulate the apoptosis in 'normal' and drug-resistant cancer cells. We are wondering how the resistance of mitochondria to MMP can explain the resistance of cancer cells to apoptosis induction, and we hope to develop strategies for overcoming chemotherapy resistance by targeting tumor mitochondria. We believe that pharmacological interventions on mitochondria are good strategies to promote cell death in tumor cells. This research topic on apoptosis is therefore relevant to disease treatment with socioeconomic impacts.

Full name: Leung King Pong, Stephen

Programme of Study: Life Science PG1

Hi! I'm Stephen, currently a graduate student focusing on plant cell biology research. Apart from having a taste of synthetic biology, which constantly surprises me with fascinating ideas, I'm honoured to guide a team of enthusiastic students with great perseverance. I hope the team can enjoy themselves and I'm looking forward to seeing other new ideas in the coming competition!

Full name: ZHU Lin

Full name: Jacky, Fong Chuen, Loo

Programme of study: Life Science PG3

Jacky is a third-year PhD student in School of Life Science at CUHK. His research focus is aptamer technology and its integration on bio-sensors development for downstream applications. He also studies the mechanism of multi-drug resistant cancer, focusing on the organelle-specific targeted drug action.