Newsletter No. 235

Inauguration of New Centre for Infectious Diseases T he University's Centre for Emerging I n f e c t i o us Diseases ( CE I D) was inaugurated on 17th January 2004. Located at the Postgraduate Education Centre of the Prince of Wales Hospital, the centre w i l l capitalize on local and overseas expertise in ep i dem i o l og y , m i c r o b i o l o g y, c l i n i c al medicine, and health economics, and work w i th Hong Kong's health authorities to strengthen the territory's preparedness for infectious diseases. The centre's missions are to provide training on infectious disease control to health care professionals and researchers, conduct research on epidemiology, the basic sciences and c l i n i cal management of infectious diseases, p r omo te i n f e c t i ous disease preparedness in the hospital and university e n v i r o nme n t s, and p r ov i de consultancy s e r v i c e to h e a l t h authorities. The o f f i c i a t i ng g u e s t s o f t h e inauguration ceremony were Dr. E . K. Yeoh, Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food; Dr. W i l l i a m Ho , c h i e f e x e c u t i v e o f t he Hospital Authority; Dr. P.Y. Lam, director of health of the Department o f H e a l t h ; P r o f . Ambrose K i ng, vice- chancellor of the University; and Prof. Sydney Chung, dean of the Faculty of Medicine. Also present were members of the CEID's advisory board. The occasion also saw the official opening of the symposium on 'Preparing for Emerging Infectious Diseases: A Global Challenge' and the signing of memoranda of understanding between CEID and the Chinese Centre for Disease Co n t r ol and P r even t i on, the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, the Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the School of Public Health of the University of California at Berkeley. CEID was represented by its director, Prof. Joseph Sung, in the signing ceremony. NIH Grant Lands Traditional Chinese Medicine Research on World Stage T wo research projects on Chinese medicine involving The Chinese University were awarded grants by the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the US National Institutes of Health ( N I H ). The N C C AM funds new partnerships between US and international research teams to create the infrastructure and scientific foundation for research into complementary and alternative medicine. Ten projects were selected from 108 applications in the first funding exercise. Of the 10, two have CUHK participation. The first involves a two-year grant of US$263,031 awarded to a team comprising researchers from the University's Institute of Chinese Medicine, Harvard Medical School, the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Keio University, to establish a US-China-Japan research consortium on herbal medicine. In response to NIH's call to systematically evaluate the quality, safety, efficacy, and basic scientific mechanism of herbal medicines worldwide, the consortium will aim at developing an international centre f o r research on c omp l eme n t a ry and alternative medicine which will pool Chinese medicine experts and researchers from Hong Kong, mainland China, and Japan — places w i t h a long and r i ch history of herbal medicine. Promising herbal medicines for untreatable diseases w i ll be identified and s y s t ema t i c a l ly p r o c u r e d, e x t r a c t ed, characterized, and tested with advanced high- throughput screening methodologies. Further preclinical testing and multi-site international human clinical trials are anticipated for the second phase. The second project involves a grant of US$255,940 to a group of medical experts from the CUHK Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, the University of Maryland, and the University of Illinois for setting up a Centre for Functional Bowel Disorders and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Irritable bowel syndrome is a functional disorder of the digestive tract characterized by abdominal pain and altered bowel habits i n the absence of organic disease. The collaborative consortium will support a multi- disciplinary team of researchers to explore the use of complementary and alternative medicine in the treatment of the syndrome by combining expertise in traditional Chinese medicine from Hong Kong and expertise in basic science and clinical research in the US to produce evidence-based results in traditional Chinese medicine studies. The University is the only institution from Hong Kong joining these partnerships and research efforts are expected to enhance the Un i ve r s i t y 's competitiveness for more substantial grants for Chinese medicine research. Medical B r e a k t h r o u g h s Restoring Hearing to NPC Patients The Department of Surgery has successfully pioneered the use of the Bone Anchored Hearing A i d ( BAHA) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients. The device is directly and permanently anchored to the skull behind the ear of the patient suffering from hearing loss caused by complications arising from radiotherapy. Instead of having sounds enter the outer ear canal and impinge on the eardrum as in normal hearing, sounds amplified by the device are conducted to the cochlea through a tiny titanium screw anchored to the skull and the bones of the skull. In current trials of the hearing aid, the Department of Surgery reports significant hearing improvements in NPC patients. It is shown to increase patient satisfaction and it promises improvement in quality of life, with implications extending beyond the patients to their families, friends, and colleagues. And because most patients develop NPC at an age when their earning powers are at their highest, it is vital both economically and psychologically that they return to productive work. The device has been successfully used since 1996 to assist patients with hearing disabilities arising from other causes. This is the first time that the BAHA has been used on patients with NPC. The results of the current trials of BAHA in NPC patients were released at a press conference held on 2nd February at the Postgraduate Education Centre of the Prince of Wales Hospital. Cloning of New Gene Means New Hope for Cystic Fibrosis A new gene related to pancreatic insufficiency in cystic fibrosis has been cloned by researchers at the Epithelial Cell Biology Research Centre of the Faculty of Medicine and their collaborators f r om Nanjing Medical University. The findings indicating the possibility of a new method for circumventing defective pancreatic secretion were published in the December 2003 issue of Lancet. Cystic fibrosis is caused by mutations in the gene encoding an ion- transport protein, the cystic-fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). Defective secretion of anions is the primary cause of many clinical manifestations of cystic fibrosis, including pancreatic insufficiency. The researchers have proven that suppression of the newly identified gene results in improvement in the amount of mutated CFTR reaching the plasma membrane, which will help in the restoration of pancreatic anion secretion. Advances in Care and Monitoring of Childhood Asthma Asthma is an inflammatory airway disease. Among Chinese populations, Hong Kong school children have the highest prevalence of asthma. In 2002 and 2003, the Department of Paediatrics conducted two large epidemiological surveys of childhood asthma in Hong Kong. Over 3,000 school children were studied to assess the prevalence of the condition and the level of control in affected children. The results, when compared with those obtained eight years ago, were found to show marked improvement in the control of the disease. Another survey — the first local study on preschoolers 一 targeted children aged two to six years. It was found that prevalence in preschoolers is comparable to that of school children. The results of the two studies were released at a press conference held on 13th January 2004 at the Postgraduate Education Centre of the Prince of Wales Hospital. There were also demonstrations of a novel method for measuring airway inflammation. How the BAHA works (From left) Prof. Gary Wong, Prof. T.F. Fok, and Prof. T.F. Leung of th e Department of Paediatrics 2 No. 235 19th February 2004