Francis Chan 陳家亮

  • Senior Medical Research Fellowship in 2007 at Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • Fellowship in 1993 at University of Calgary

Professor Francis Ka-Leung Chan, SBS, JP (陳家亮教授) is the Choh-Ming Li Professor of Medicine and Therapeutics at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the Co-director of the Microbiota I-Center (MagIC) Limited established under the Innovation and Technology Commission, HKSAR Government. He is also an internationally renowned clinician-scientist and an entrepreneur.

Graduated with honours in CUHK in 1988, Professor Chan completed his postgraduate training as a Croucher Foundation research fellow in Canada. Passionate in teaching, he joined his alma mater in 1997 as a lecturer and has risen through the ranks to become Professor of Medicine in 2005, the Director of the Institute of Digestive Disease from 2010 to 2012, and the 8th Dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 2013 to 2024.

Professor Chan started his research career more than two decades ago on the prevention of gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding with anti-thrombotic agents and analgesics, which is an important cause of hospitalization and death in our aging population worldwide. His research on the prevention of NSAIDs and aspirin-related GI bleeding has led to major revisions to clinical practice guidelines in the U.S., Europe and the Asia Pacific region. He is the first in academic history to publish eight first-authored investigator-initiated, original research articles in The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. He is also the first scholar in Asia to be selected for a profile by The Lancet in May 2007 to exemplify his excellence in clinical research. His groundbreaking research has generated over 860 full scientific articles in high impact international journals, yielding an h-index of over 100.

His extensive clinical research experience and international pharmaceutical network has put him in a unique position to pioneer the downstream development of novel therapeutics in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. In 2020, Professor Chan co-founded a biotechnology start-up company, GenieBiome Company Limited, to transform microbiome innovations into clinical applications for early disease detection, prevention, and treatment, including novel diagnostic tests for recurrent colorectal neoplasia, post-acute COVID-19 syndrome, autism spectrum disorder etc. As an inventor, he has filed a number of patents across the nation, U.S., and Europe.

Being a world-renowned clinician-scientist in gastrointestinal diseases, he was bestowed with Doctor of Science from CUHK in 2011 and received an honorary doctorate from Osaka City University in 2018. His contributions and leadership in gastroenterology have been recognized worldwide with numerous international honours and awards, including the International Leadership Award of the American College of Gastroenterology in 2018, being named the top 0.06% World Expert in Aspirin by ExpertScape in 2019, the Gold Medal with Congratulation of the Jury, Gold Medals and Silver Medals of International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva 2022 and 2023, being named as the Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate Analytics in 2022 and 2023, and the Research Mentor Award from the American Gastroenterology Association in 2023.

Currently

Professor Chan is continuing his research on gut microbiota, non-invasive colorectal cancer diagnosis, and the management of anti-thrombotics in gastrointestinal bleeding.