Dr. Ka Loon Allen CHEUNG

Dr Cheung, Ka Loon Allen obtained his BMedSc (Hons) from the University of Sydney where he continued his PhD study. He was trained as a virologist studying latent human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection of haematopoietic stem cells, where he generated custom-viral microarrays to identify a unique subset of viral genes that may be responsible for latency. Since then, he has been particularly interested in immunology and had his postdoctoral training in the Department of Immunology of the University of Tokyo under the prestigious Prof Tadatsugu Taniguchi. Afterwards, he joined the AIDS Institute of the University of Hong Kong to continue his work on virology in HCMV and HIV-1 as well as immunology. He discovered a novel immune activating molecule expressed by gamma-delta T cells that leads to gut inflammation via TLR4 during acute HIV infection in patients. He also worked on developing novel DNA vaccines and understanding their mechanisms. After joining the Department of Biology in HKBU, Dr Cheung’s research interests have been focused on understanding the role of gamma-delta T cells against cancer, the immune mechanism underlying Parkinson’s disease, and investigation of HCMV immunmodulation of haematopoietic stem cells. His work has been published in internationally renowned peer-reviewed journals including Nature Microbiology, Blood, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Molecular Therapy, Cancer Research and Journal of Virology.