You are welcome to attend the Seminar. Please find the details below:

Date: July 29, 2024 (Monday)
Time: 10:00am-12:00nn
Venue: Seminar Room 3, G/F, The HKJC Building for Interdisciplinary Research, 5 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Fee: ：Free of Charge
Registration: HERE
Enquires: Tel: 81000538；Email: scmevent@hku.hk

Speaker:
Dr Wen Xiao-Yan
President of ZebraPeutics（Zhongshan）Ltd.

Moderator:
Professor Feng Yibin
Director, School of Chinese Medicine, HKU

Abstract:

Fundamental research using zebrafish has facilitated a technical revolution in our ability to manipulate the zebrafish genome and generate mutations for disease modeling. Coupled with the high throughput capability in genetic and chemical genetic screens, zebrafish research has entered into a new era, which is expected to make a significant impact toward promoting the development of personalized and precision medicine. In collaboration with clinical doctors, we generated zebrafish models to study rare disease genes to mimic human genetic mutations, such as NANS and NPL genes in the metabolism of sialic acid, and explored treatment methods for the rare diseases (published in Nature Genetics and JCI Insight). Using zebrafish disease models, we also performed chemical genetic screens targeting a number of devastating diseases, such as hemorrhagic stroke, severe sepsis and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and identified drug lead compounds which could be further evaluated in future clinical trials.

About the Speaker:

Dr Wen Xiao-Yan received his PhD degree from Dept of Medical Genetics, University of Toronto and was an Associate Professor at University of Toronto before returning to China in 2022. He is the founder and Director of the Zebrafish Centre for Advanced Drug Discovery, and the founder and President of ZebraPeutics (Zhongshan) Ltd. He was awarded as an expert under the “High-end Foreign Experts Introduction Program” by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China in 2022, and was hired as a “Zhongshan Global Talent Introduction Consultant” by Zhongshan City in 2023. His research focuses on zebrafish disease models and high throughput screens for drug development. He established advanced zebrafish screening platforms, which served many academic labs as well as industrial partners. His team won many international and domestic awards in science and technology competitions and published in N Engl J Med, Nat Genet, Nat Comm and JCI. Since 2013, he initiated and hosted biennial international “Zebrafish for Personalized and Precision Medicine Conference”, having a profound impact in the field.