Guan Yi (; born 1962) is a Chinese
virologist
Virology is the scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host cells for reproduction, their ...
. In 2014, he was ranked as 11th in the world by
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre.
Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...
(now known as Clarivate Analytics) among global researchers in the field of
microbiology
Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, prot ...
. He obtained his PhD in microbiology at the
University of Hong Kong
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the fi ...
and is now a professor of microbiology at his alma mater. His research on the viral respiratory disease
SARS helped the
Chinese government avert the
2004 outbreak of this disease.
He is the current director (China affairs) of the State Key Laboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases
University of Hong Kong
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the fi ...
. In early 2017, Guan warned that the
H7N9 influenza virus "poses the greatest threat to humanity than any other in the past 100 years".
Education
Guan received his
MD degree from the
Medical College of Nanchang University (also known as Jiangxi Medical College), his advanced medical degree from
Peking Union Medical College, and his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
from the
University of Hong Kong
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the fi ...
.
[
]
Career
Focusing his research on influenza viruses
''Orthomyxoviridae'' (from Greek language, Greek ὀρθός, ''orthós'' 'straight' + μύξα, ''mýxa'' 'mucus') is a family of negative-sense single-stranded RNA virus, negative-sense RNA viruses. It includes seven genus, genera: ''Influenza ...
throughout his career, Guan has identified all the major precursors and transmission pathways of the H5N1 variant that circulates in Southeast Asia, Europe and Africa and has provided most of the World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
recommended pre-pandemic H5N1 vaccines strains.
Guan has, also, initiated the systematic study of H9N2
Influenza A virus subtype H9N2 (A/H9N2) is a subtype of the species Influenza A virus (bird flu virus).
Since 1998 a total of 86 cases of human infection with H9N2 viruses have been reported.
Infection in birds
H9N2 is the most common subtype o ...
viruses, which, along with H5 viruses that are now regarded as the most likely novel influenza subtypes to cause a pandemic
A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...
.
Guan has defined the role of domestic ducks in harboring and spreading influenza viruses and made major contributions in recognizing the emergence, evolutionary history and development of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic virus and revealed the genesis, infection source, evolutionary pathway and possible transmission route of the 2017 emerging H7N9 influenza virus.[
Guan has also contributed to the identification of animal reservoirs for coronaviruses, leading a team to identify bats as a reservoir host for SARS-CoV and palm civets as an intermediate host for SARS-CoV.
Guan has worked for various highly esteemed universities and hospitals over the years. beginning his career from 1983 to 1986 as Resident doctor (Teaching Assistant) (Department of Paediatrics) at First Affiliated Hospital of Jiangxi Medical College: Nanchang, CN. Soon after becoming "Doctor-in-charge" (Lecturer) (Department of Paediatrics) at Shantou University Medical College: Shantou, CN from 1989 to 1992. Moving on from there between 1993 and 1995 Guan was a Ph.D. candidate (Department of Microbiology) at the University of Hong Kong: Hong Kong, HK. He then moved to America between 1995 to 1997 where he completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Virology and Molecular Biology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital: TN, Memphis, AM.
Guan then returned to University of Hong Kong: Hong Kong, HK where he was employed from 1997 to 2000 as Research Assistant Professor in The Department of Microbiology, then 2001 to 2013 as Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in The Department of Microbiology, and from 2005 to 2011 as Professor in The Department of Microbiology and finally from 2013 to 2016 he became The Director of The Centre of Influenza Research. Guan Yi currently hold the position of Chair Professor in Emerging Viral Diseases (School of Public Health) 2015 to present day.
Professor Guan Yi currently hold multiple high positions in highly esteemed health organizations across China.
He is Director (Joint Influenza Research Centre (HKU & SUMC)) at Shantou University Medical College: Shantou, CN 2004 to present, Director (International Institute of Infection and Immunity) Shantou University Medical College: Shantou, CN 2007 to present, Director (State Key Laboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases) University of Hong Kong: Hong Kong, HK 2005 to present, Daniel C K Yu Endowed Professor in Virology (School of Public Health) at University of Hong Kong: Hong Kong, HK 2012 to present, Part of the Joint Institute of Virology (STU/HKU) : Shantou , CN 2015 to present, and Joint Laboratory for International Cooperation in Virology and Emerging Infectious Diseases: China, CN 2016 to present in the Ministry of Education.
]
COVID-19 pandemic
Guan Yi has given expert comments on SARS-CoV-2
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a ...
when interviewed by Caixin, warning that the coronavirus could be 10 times worse than the 2003 Sars outbreak. He said to media, "I have been through so many isease outbreaks and I have never been scared. Most f the outbreaksare manageable, but this time I am scared." What he said in his interview with Caixin were apparently different from that in most Chinese media, and it became highly controversial as journalists of state media reposted his previous statement, which he made on 15 January, claiming that the disease was manageable. The journalists also reposted the information that Guan's lab was once fined by the government in 2005. Wang Duan, the Caixin journalist who interviewed Guan Yi, described such behavior as "personal attacks
''Ad hominem'' (), short for ''argumentum ad hominem'' (), refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious.
Typically, this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other ...
" and complained that no expert had so far come forward to refute what Guan said.
In mid July when a cluster of resurgent cases in Beijing was reported, Guan was interviewed by iNewsweek journal (中国新闻周刊) which shared his supportive opinion to the speculation that the virus imported into Beijing via contaminated frozen salmon fishes.
In what ''Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Televi ...
'' called "a rare show of public criticism", Guan Yi criticised the Chinese government's zero COVID
Zero-COVID, also known as COVID-Zero and "Find, Test, Trace, Isolate, and Support" (FTTIS), is a public health policy that has been implemented by some countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.Anna Llupià, Rodríguez-Giralt, Anna Fité, Lola Ála ...
measures, telling Phoenix Hong Kong Channel
Phoenix Hong Kong Channel is one of the six channels that Phoenix Television operates. It was launched on 28 March 2011 in order to serve Chinese viewers in Hong Kong, and it is Phoenix Television's first Yue Chinese-language channel that is avai ...
that if the government persists with the policy for a handful of cases, then the economy will suffer. Guan has advocated for increased vaccination and research into the efficacy of homegrown vaccines against new variants.
Appearances in popular media
In 2005, ''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' featured Guan as one of its 18 "Global Health Heroes", and in 2006, named him an "Asian Hero" for his influenza virus research work. In 2021 he was awarded the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award.
Academic publications
Guan's publication record contained in the United States National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
PubMed
PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...
database shows his having over 280 peer-reviewed articles with over 26,000 citations and an h-index
The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...
of 79.[
]
Controversies
In 2022, Guan was accused of bullying by his former team member at the University of Hong Kong.管軼團隊裡涉嫌職務欺詐與欺凌的惡劣行為
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guan, Yi
1962 births
Living people
Alumni of the University of Hong Kong
Biologists from Jiangxi
Chinese virologists
Coronavirus researchers
Nanchang University alumni
Peking Union Medical College alumni
People from Ganzhou
Academic staff of the University of Hong Kong