System Microbiology & Antimicrobial Resistance @Tun (SMART) Lab
Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Hein Tun is a public health veterinarian and currently an Associate Professor at the JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Nanjing Medical University and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests range from studies on the mechanistic and functional roles of microbiome in health and diseases to One Health surveillance of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria and the resistome. His major research focused on the impact of the early-life exposome on the development of gut microbiome and the associated risks for allergic, metabolic, and immune-mediated diseases. He is the young scientist member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Pasteur Network. He has published more than 75 original peer-reviewed articles in high impact journals such as Gut, Gastroenterology, Nature Communication, Microbiome, JAMA Pediatrics, Journal of Travel Medicine, Environment International, and Gut Microbes.  Moreover, he has received several international research awards and fellowships including the Gold Medal at 2021 Inventions Geneva Evaluation Days, Canadian Institute of Health Research Fellowship, and the Dik Zwart Award.

Xi received her bachelor’s degree from Zhejiang University majoring in Veterinary Medicine. She then obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Microbiology, the University of Hong Kong in 2021. She joined the HKU-Pasteur Research Pole, School of Public Health, as a post-doctoral fellow in 2021. Her current research focuses on the early-life microbiome and the microbiota determinants in association with the development of metabolic illnesses.

Ye received his bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical Engineering (Biopharmaceutics) and Master's degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the South China University of Technology (SCUT), Guangzhou. He joined a SCUT-BGI joint-training project in his junior year, and was an intern for the bioinformatics research of microbiome in health and disease at BGI-Research for more than 4 years. He completed his Ph.D in Microbiome in Health and Disease at the University of Hong Kong in the Tun Lab. He is interested in the roles of bacteriome and virome in human health and diseases, with a focus on early life.

Shilin graduated with a master's in Public Health from the University of Hong Kong and a
bachelor's in Health Inspection and Quarantine at Guangdong Medical University. He
worked as a data analyst before joining the Tun lab. His research focus is in
epidemiological methods and mental health.

Suisha received her Bachelor's degree in Biomedical engineering in Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan; Master's degree in Bioengineering in South China University of Technology (SCUT), Guangzhou. she worked as an intermediate bioinformatics analysis engineer at BGI-Research for more than 9 years before joining the Tun lab. Now she is a Ph.D. student studying the correlation between mental health and microbiome.

Juelei (Jelly) received a Bachelor's of Medical Science (Hons I) in Immunobiology (anatomy/histology) and Microbiology (for honours) from the University of Sydney. She also received a Master's in Biomedical Sciences in Immunity and Infection from the same institution. She is now pursuing a Ph.D at the Tun Lab, focusing on elucidating the mechanisms underlying autism spectrum disorder. 

Hogan received his MSc Biochemical & Biomedical Sciences degree from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include skin and gut microbiota in the development of allergic diseases. 

Xueqi received both her Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Public Health Laboratory Sciences at West China School of Public Health, Sichuan University in 2020 and 2023, respectively. She has previously worked on gut microbiome dysbiosis in HIV-infected individuals. Funded by a prestigous Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme(HKPFS), Xueqi is now a Ph.D. student in the Tun lab, where she is focusing on early-life environmental exposures on infants gut microbiome and related health outcomes.

Brian received a BSc in Information Systems from the University of New South Wales and an MSc in Genomics from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Prior to joining the Tun Lab, he worked on cancer genomics. He is now focusing on microbiome data analysis, AI and cloud computing. 

Zhu Jie received a BSc in Bioinformatics from Huazhong Agricultural University. His primary reserarch foci are in genomic and microbiome informatics. He is responsible for developing bioinformatics pipelines and data analysis. 

Xin Liu received a BSc in Bioinformatics from Hunan University and currently focuses on bacterial genomic analysis in the Tun Lab. 

Daniel received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Durham, UK, where he majored in Biosciences. He previously joined the Tun Lab as a student intern during Summer 2019, where he studied the acquisition of antimicrobial resistance genes during travel abroad. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he returned to the Tun Lab as a full-time research assistant. His research interests include the biochemical mechanisms that drive commensal persistence in gut microbiota and bacteriophages. He will soon pursue a Ph.D at Imperial College London to study bacteriophages. 

Ingrid graduated with a BSc in Microbiology from Imperial College London. In the Tun Lab, she has previously worked on antimicrobial resistance but is now focusing on gut microbiota determinants in association with depression and its modifiable effects.

Gary obtained his Bachelor's degree in Food Safety and Technology from Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2020. He is working on an antimicrobial resistance project in the Tun lab

Vivian Chan received a BSc in Life Sciences from National Yang Ming University. She now performs experiments to characterize antimicrobial resistance in bacteria on humans.

Guanwen is a recent graduate of Zhejiang University, where he received his Bachelor's degree in Veterinary Medicine in 2022. He was an intern at Zhejiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ZJCDC) in 2020. During his undergraduate studies, his research mainly focused on Salmonella spp. Currently, he is working as a research assistant in the Tun Lab, focusing on bacteriophage therapy and AMR projects.

Li Hang received his bachelor's degree from Shantou University majoring in Marine Science (2018), and MSc Environmental Health & Safety from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2022). His current research focuses on keystone bacteria species that may contribute to the occurrence of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD).