Gabriel Leung

Gabriel Matthew Leung (Chinese: 梁卓偉; Jyutping: Loeng4 Coek3 Wai5, born 6 November 1972) is a Hong Kong physician and public health authority who has served as the fortieth Dean of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) since 2013. He made major contributions to epidemiological research during the SARS (2003), Avian Influenza A H7N9 (2013) and COVID-19 (2020) pandemics,[1] and also led the Hong Kong government’s efforts against the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 as the Under Secretary for Food and Health.[2] Leung is recognised as one of Asia’s leading experts on epidemiology and global health.

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Leung.
Professor

Gabriel M. Leung

GBS, JP
梁卓偉
Dean of Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine
Assumed office
1 August 2013
Preceded byLee Sum-ping
Personal details
Born
Gabriel Matthew Leung

(1972-11-06) 6 November 1972
Hong Kong
Alma materUniversity of Western Ontario (MD)
Harvard University (MPH)
The University of Hong Kong (MD)
WebsiteOfficial bio
Scientific career
FieldsEpidemiology
Public health

Early life and education

Leung was born in Hong Kong and studied at Wah Yan College. He continued his education at Stonyhurst College in the United Kingdom and Crescent School in Canada.

He read medicine at the University of Western Ontario, completing his family medicine residency training in Toronto. Leung received his master’s from Harvard University in 1999, and earned his research doctorate at HKU.[3]

Career

Leung’s career combines academic research, teaching, government service and global engagements. Debrett’s Hong Kong 100 lists Leung as one of the 100 most influential people in Hong Kong.[4]

Early academic career

In 1999, Leung joined the medical faculty at HKU as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Community Medicine (now the School of Public Health) in 1999 and became an Associate Professor in 2004. He was one of the University’s youngest ever tenured full professors at the age of 33.[5]

During SARS epidemic

In 2003, during the SARS epidemic, Leung established and directed the Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Group. He led the group's work, which focused on field studies and modelling of directly transmissible respiratory pathogens.[6]

In 2005, he travelled to Harvard University as a Takemi Fellow, returning to HKU as a full professor in 2006. From 2006-2008, Leung was also the Vice President and Censor in Public Health Medicine for the Hong Kong College of Community Medicine.[7]

Government service

In 2008, Leung joined the HKSAR government and served as the first Under Secretary for Food and Health until 2011. From 2011–2012, he was appointed the Director of Office of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, being the fifth appointed to this role and the youngest office bearer outside the Administrative Service. In this role, he assisted the Chief Executive in coordinating and directing government policies and liaised with district councils, the Legislative Council, and mainland authorities at national and provincial levels. He coordinated the first overlapping transition between two successive administrations in the history of Hong Kong.[5]

Return to academia

Leung returned to HKU after finishing his term with the government in 2012, serving as the head of the Department of Community Medicine and founding acting director of the School of Public Health until 2013. Leung completed an organisational review leading to the consolidation of various cognate and related academic units into a new School of Public Health. He secured the Patrick Manson Building to bring all constituent units of the new School together at the Sassoon Road campus.[5]

Deanship

In August 2013, Leung was appointed as the fortieth Dean of the HKU's Medical Faculty at age 40, becoming the second youngest dean ever appointed at HKU. He has also became a member of the Hospital Authority Board (statutory agency in Hong Kong responsible for all public health care services) since 2013, and completed two terms on the University Grants Committee (an advisory body on the development and funding requirements of the higher education sector in Hong Kong) from 2014 to 2019.[8]

During his time as Dean, he reformed the admission policy of the Faculty, placing greater emphasis on finding candidates with resilience and humanaitarian qualities, rather than merely academic excellence. This draws on the Chinese concept of a “benevolent medical practitioner” (仁醫), which is also a recurring theme in his speeches.

He also reformed many aspects of admission infrastructure and launched ‘Springboard’ and ‘Second Chance’ scholarships, which are awarded to first year students from minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds.[9] These undertakings led to some of the highest scoring intakes in the faculty’s history.[10]

Under Leung's Deanship, several structural changes were made to the Faculty and its departments:

  • Leung oversaw the creation of the academic Emergency Medicine Unit in 2015, and subsequent opening of the Emergency Department of Gleneagles Hong Kong Hospital in 2017.[11]
  • As part of the 130th anniversary of the faculty in 2017 which Leung directed and oversaw, a series of curricula reforms were launched for the MBBS programme and the Bachelors of Nursing, Pharmacy, and Biomedical Sciences programmes, and notably the introduction of the “Enrichment Year” for MBBS students. Additionally, the Institute of Human Performance was incorporated into the Faculty. Leung also led the commissioning of Hong Kong’s first academic cancer centre at the repurposed Grantham Hospital. He introduced the first veterinary studies exchange cum articulation programme with the University of Edinburgh, in physiotherapy and radiography with the University of Sydney, and with the Master of Public Health programme of UC Berkeley.

Leung also steered the Faculty to secure five InnoHK research centres at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park – the highest number for a faculty amongst the higher education sector, and was directly responsible for securing over 1.6 billion HKD in philanthropic donations (including a 1.24 billion HKD donation from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust that is the single largest donation received by the University to date) and 3.2 billion HKD government capital works support.[5]

Leung oversaw the master planning of the medical campus redevelopment, which will be completed in 2030.[16]

Since the year preceding Leung’s deanship (2012-13) to the academic year 2019-20, HKU's Medical Faculty advanced eight places (36th to 28th) in the Times Higher Education University Rankings for Clinical, Preclinical, and Health programmes. [17]

Academic profile

Leung holds an admiration for the ideal of a "polymath" who masters several apparently disparate disciplines. In a speech delivered at the 2014 Anthony J Hedley Lecture of the School of Public Health in honour of his mentor that the lecture was named after, Leung spoke of "a renaissance quality" that has become "a rarity in today’s world of super-specialisation and the Fordian reductive approach to hone perfection". Leung said he saw in Prof Hedley "the qualities of a generalist with a strategic command of the full ecoscape of all that matter to population health but one who can at once become a competent, even expert, specialist in a specific area when called upon", which epitomised what he said he has been modelling after in his career.[18]

Leung's team has leveraged on several large-scale longitudinal cohort studies, namely the "Children of 1997" birth cohort, Hong Kong Department of Health Elderly Health Service cohort and FAMILY cohort, to test a series of novel hypotheses based on a socio-historical perspective of life course epidemiological theory. These investigations have proposed novel insights about the fundamental biologic pathways leading to common non-communicable diseases, namely cardiovascular disease and Type II diabetes, with global health relevance.[19]

Leung established and directed the University’s Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group since the time of the 2003 SARS epidemic and led Hong Kong government’s efforts against pandemic H1N1 in 2009. He was founding co-director of HKU's World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control, an institution designated by the Director-General of WHO to form part of an international collaborative network set up by WHO in support of its programme at the country, intercountry, regional, interregional and global levels. Leung’s team of investigators is now recognised as one of the leading epidemiological laboratories in the field of influenza research.[20]

Another key component of his research programme is health systems and policy research, where his team has been responsible for national health accounting for the Hong Kong government and as consultant to governments throughout the region. It has also been a major contributor to the EQUITAP and Global Network for Health Equity projects (sponsored by EU FP7 and IDRC), assessing the equity performance of health systems across more than a dozen countries in the Asia Pacific and globally respectively.[21]

Leung has also pioneered the development of cost-effectiveness, health systems, financing and policy research in Hong Kong and around the Asia Pacific region. From 2010 until 2014, he served as inaugural Chair of the Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems Policies and continues to lead its Strategic Technical Advisory Committee (2018–), a multipartite partnership of governments, development agencies and the research community.[22] His team has also been commissioned by the Hong Kong government to develop and evaluate screening strategies for breast and colorectal cancer prevention, as well as to undertake projections to inform human resources for health planning.

Selected works and publications
  • Wu, Joseph T.; Leung, Kathy; Bushman, Mary; Kishore, Nishant; Niehus, Rene; de Salazar, Pablo M.; Cowling, Benjamin J.; Lipsitch, Marc; Leung, Gabriel M. (19 March 2020). "Estimating clinical severity of COVID-19 from the transmission dynamics in Wuhan, China". Nature Medicine. 26 (4): 506–510. doi:10.1038/s41591-020-0822-7. PMID 32284616. Wikidata ()
  • Wu, Joseph T; Leung, Kathy; Leung, Gabriel M (31 January 2020). "Nowcasting and forecasting the potential domestic and international spread of the 2019-nCoV outbreak originating in Wuhan, China: a modelling study". The Lancet. 395 (10225): 689–697. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30260-9. PMID 32014114. Wikidata ()
  • Li, Qun; Guan, Xuhua; Wu, Peng; Wang, Xiaoye; Zhou, Lei; Tong, Yeqing; Ren, Ruiqi; Leung, Kathy S.M.; Lau, Eric H.Y.; Wong, Jessica Y.; Xing, Xuesen; Xiang, Nijuan; Wu, Yang; Li, Chao; Chen, Qi; Li, Dan; Liu, Tian; Zhao, Jing; Liu, Man; Tu, Wenxiao; Chen, Chuding; Jin, Lianmei; Yang, Rui; Wang, Qi; Zhou, Suhua; Wang, Rui; Liu, Hui; Luo, Yinbo; Liu, Yuan; Shao, Ge; Li, Huan; Tao, Zhongfa; Yang, Yang; Deng, Zhiqiang; Liu, Boxi; Ma, Zhitao; Zhang, Yanping; Shi, Guoqing; Lam, Tommy T.Y.; Wu, Joseph T.; Gao, George F.; Cowling, Benjamin J.; Yang, Bo; Leung, Gabriel M.; Feng, Zijian (26 March 2020). "Early Transmission Dynamics in Wuhan, China, of Novel Coronavirus–Infected Pneumonia". New England Journal of Medicine. 382 (13): 1199–1207. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2001316. PMID 31995857. Wikidata ()
  • Ni, Michael Y; Yao, Xiaoxin I; Leung, Kathy S M; Yau, Cynthia; Leung, Candi M C; Lun, Phyllis; Flores, Francis P; Chang, Wing Chung; Cowling, Benjamin J; Leung, Gabriel M (9 January 2020). "Depression and post-traumatic stress during major social unrest in Hong Kong: a 10-year prospective cohort study". The Lancet. 395 (10220): 273–284. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(19)33160-5. PMID 31928765. Wikidata ()
  • Xing, Weijia; Liao, Qiaohong; Viboud, Cécile; Zhang, Jing; Sun, Junling; Wu, Joseph T; Chang, Zhaorui; Liu, Fengfeng; Fang, Vicky J; Zheng, Yingdong; Cowling, Benjamin J; Varma, Jay K; Farrar, Jeremy J; Leung, Gabriel M; Yu, Hongjie (31 January 2014). "Hand, foot, and mouth disease in China, 2008–12: an epidemiological study". The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 14 (4): 308–318. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(13)70342-6. PMC 4035015. PMID 24485991. Wikidata ()
  • Yu, Hongjie; Wu, Joseph T; Cowling, Benjamin J; Liao, Qiaohong; Fang, Vicky J; Zhou, Sheng; Wu, Peng; Zhou, Hang; Lau, Eric H Y; Guo, Danhuai; Ni, Michael Y; Peng, Zhibin; Feng, Luzhao; Jiang, Hui; Luo, Huiming; Li, Qun; Feng, Zijian; Wang, Yu; Yang, Weizhong; Leung, Gabriel M (8 February 2014). "Effect of closure of live poultry markets on poultry-to-person transmission of avian influenza A H7N9 virus: an ecological study". The Lancet. 383 (9916): 541–548. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61904-2. PMC 3946250. PMID 24183056. Wikidata ()
  • Yu, Hongjie; Cowling, Benjamin J; Feng, Luzhao; Lau, Eric HY; Liao, Qiaohong; Tsang, Tim K; Peng, Zhibin; Wu, Peng; Liu, Fengfeng; Fang, Vicky J; Zhang, Honglong; Li, Ming; Zeng, Lingjia; Xu, Zhen; Li, Zhongjie; Luo, Huiming; Li, Qun; Feng, Zijian; Cao, Bin; Yang, Weizhong; Wu, Joseph T; Wang, Yu; Leung, Gabriel M (13 July 2013). "Human infection with avian influenza A H7N9 virus: an assessment of clinical severity". The Lancet. 382 (9887): 138–145. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61207-6. PMC 3801178. PMID 23803487. Wikidata ()
  • Cowling, Benjamin J; Jin, Lianmei; Lau, Eric HY; Liao, Qiaohong; Wu, Peng; Jiang, Hui; Tsang, Tim K; Zheng, Jiandong; Fang, Vicky J; Chang, Zhaorui; Ni, Michael Y; Zhang, Qian; Ip, Dennis KM; Yu, Jianxing; Li, Yu; Wang, Liping; Tu, Wenxiao; Meng, Ling; Wu, Joseph T; Luo, Huiming; Li, Qun; Shu, Yuelong; Li, Zhongjie; Feng, Zijian; Yang, Weizhong; Wang, Yu; Leung, Gabriel M; Yu, Hongjie (13 July 2013). "Comparative epidemiology of human infections with avian influenza A H7N9 and H5N1 viruses in China: a population-based study of laboratory-confirmed cases". The Lancet. 382 (9887): 129–137. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61171-X. PMC 3777567. PMID 23803488. Wikidata ()
  • Cowling, Benjamin J.; Chan, Kwok Hung; Fang, Vicky J.; Lau, Lincoln L.H.; So, Hau Chi; Fung, Rita O.P.; Ma, Edward S.K.; Kwong, Alfred S.K.; Chan, Chi-Wai; Tsui, Wendy W.S.; Ngai, Ho-Yin; Chu, Daniel W.S.; Lee, Paco W.Y.; Chiu, Ming-Chee; Leung, Gabriel M.; Peiris, Joseph S.M. (10 June 2010). "Comparative Epidemiology of Pandemic and Seasonal Influenza A in Households". New England Journal of Medicine. 362 (23): 2175–2184. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa0911530. PMID 20558368. Wikidata ()
  • Leung, Gabriel M.; Hedley, Anthony J.; Ho, Lai-Ming; Chau, Patsy; Wong, Irene O.L.; Thach, Thuan Q.; Ghani, Azra C.; Donnelly, Christl A.; Fraser, Christophe; Riley, Steven; Ferguson, Neil M.; Anderson, Roy M.; Tsang, Thomas; Leung, Pak-Yin; Wong, Vivian; Chan, Jane C.K.; Tsui, Eva; Lo, Su-Vui; Lam, Tai-Hing (2 November 2004). "The Epidemiology of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in the 2003 Hong Kong Epidemic: An Analysis of All 1755 Patients". Annals of Internal Medicine. 141 (9): 662. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-141-9-200411020-00006. PMID 15520422. Wikidata ()

Professional engagement

Leung is registered in Hong Kong as a medical practitioner under limited registration and as a Specialist in Public Health Medicine.[23] He is an honorary consultant in family medicine and primary care of Queen Mary Hospital/Hong Kong West Cluster and attends a weekly clinic.

He directs the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, and was an elected council member of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine in 2012–2019.[24]

In the US, Leung is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has served on the Commission on a Global Health Risk Framework for the Future which the academy led.[25]

Internationally, Leung is a founding co-director of HKU’s World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases Epidemiology and Control,[5] and has served on the International Expert Group Convening on Pandemic Emergency Preparedness for G7 Summit, the Harvard-LSHTM Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola and was an expert reviewer for the United Nations Secretary-General High-level Panel on the Global Response to Health Crises.[26]

Leung advises national and international agencies including the World Health Organization, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Boao Forum for Asia, Institut Pasteur, Japan Center for International Exchange and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.[27]

He edited the Journal of Public Health from 2007-2014, was inaugural co-editor of Epidemics, associate editor of Health Policy and is founding deputy editor-in-chief of China CDC Weekly. He currently serves on the editorial boards of seven journals, including the British Medical Journal.[5]

Also, Leung has been the inaugural Master of Chi Sun College, a residential college for HKU students, since 2012.[28] He raised 70 million HKD to endow the College plus a further 4.5 million HKD for additional refurbishment of the College Library and Lobby Lounge. As the College master, Leung pioneered a novel model of residential learning based on the Oxbridge collegiate system and HKU’s century-old hall experience. He led the College to have consistently become the most oversubscribed residential hall in the University.[29]

Awards and honours

References
  1. "Gabriel M Leung (0000-0002-2503-6283)". ORCID. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  2. (in Chinese)"食物及衞生局副局長就防控人類豬流感會見記者的開場發言（只有中文）". Hong Kong Food and Health Bureau. 20 July 2009. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  3. "Dean's Corner - Professor Gabriel Leung". University of Hong Kong. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  4. "Professor Gabriel Matthew Leung, GBS". Archived from the original on 2016-03-11.
  5. "Gabriel M. Leung's Profile". LinkedIn. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  6. "Gabriel M Leung - The University of Hong Kong" (PDF). Hong Kong: Hospital Authority. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  7. "Hong Kong College of Community Medicine".
  8. "Membership of University Grants Committee". Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  9. "Reflections: broadening students' minds is as important as results". Education Post. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
  10. "Admissions Scores of HKDSE Applicants Admitted in 2016" (PDF). The University of Hong Kong. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  11. "'Bringing Emergency Medicine to Community': HKU Medical Students Teaching Domestic Workers Basic Life Support Skills for the Elderly". Retrieved 23 August 2015.
  12. "Queen Mary Hospital".
  13. "HKU-SZ Hospital". Archived from the original on 2015-12-22.
  14. "Groundbreaking of New Gleneagles Hong Kong Hospital". Retrieved 13 January 2014.
  15. "Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital". Archived from the original on 2011-11-11.
  16. "Campus Redevelopment". HKU Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine.
  17. "World University Rankings 2020 by subject: clinical, pre-clinical and health". Times Higher Education (THE). 14 November 2019. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  18. "HKU School of Public Health hosts the Fourth Hong Kong Public Health Forum on The Role of the Generalist - A Tribute to Professor Anthony J Hedley". Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  19. "HKU announces a "Children of 1997" cohort study showing breastfeeding's impact on Hong Kong's public health Baby Friendly Action Joint Declaration signed on site to urge for immediate implementation of the HK Code". Retrieved 18 July 2014.
  20. "About The Faculty". Archived from the original on 2015-02-24. Retrieved 2015-12-15.
  21. "Equitap analysis".
  22. "Health in Transition (HiT) publication". Retrieved 14 August 2013.
  23. Listing in the Medical Council of Hong Kong
  24. "Hong Kong Academy of Medicine".
  25. "Global Health Risk Framework".
  26. "Secretary-General Appoints High-Level Panel on Global Response to Health Crises". Retrieved 2 April 2015.
  27. "Bulletin of the World Health Organization".
  28. "Chi Sun College". Archived from the original on 2016-04-12.
  29. "Message from the Master". Chi Sun College. The University of Hong Kong. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
Academic offices
Preceded by
Lee Sum-ping		 Dean of Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine
2013 – present		 Incumbent
Political offices
Preceded by
Raymond Tam		 Director of the Chief Executive's Office
2011–2012		 Succeeded by
Edward Yau
New office Under Secretary for Food and Health
2008–2011		 Succeeded by
Sophia Chan
Order of precedence
Preceded by
Benjamin Tang
Recipients of the Gold Bauhinia Star		 Hong Kong order of precedence
Recipients of the Gold Bauhinia Star		 Succeeded by
Lau Siu Kai
Recipients of the Gold Bauhinia Star
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