The School of Public Health is committed to protecting and improving health for all people, through the synthesis of state-of-the-science research, the dissemination of knowledge in education and training, and the application of public health sciences. One of the school’s key missions is to challenge the threats posed by emerging infectious diseases to the global health.

Professor Guan Yi is at the forefront of research into virology and the cause of emerging infectious diseases in China and the rest of the world. He is currently conducting a study into the evolution of influenza through a long-term surveillance network of animals in Southern China and Hong Kong.

Beginning in 2000, Professor Guan initiated and organised the influenza surveillance programme, which was one of the most systematic and comprehensive studies of its kind in the world. The information obtained from this programme has furthered the understanding of the ecology and evolution of influenza and its dissemination in Southeast Asia. His research team has identified all major variants and transmission pathways of H5N1 influenza viruses, and has also made significant contributions to our knowledge in the genesis and development of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic influenza virus.

He joined the Department of Microbiology at The University of Hong Kong in 2000 as a Research Assistant Professor, and became an Assistant Professor in 2003. From 2005 to 2011, he was a Professor at the department in line with the recognition of his outstanding academic research output. In 2005, he became the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at HKU as well as the Director of the Division of Infection at the International Institute of Infection and Immunity, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China.

Professor Guan has made ground-breaking and distinguished contributions to the field of virology and the control of emerging infectious diseases in China and across the globe. In particular, he initiated the SARS etiological investigation in Guangdong, China that resulted in The University of Hong Kong being the first research team to identify this emerging coronavirus. He was the first virologist to identify the virus in wild animal markets in Guangdong, showing this to be the interface for zoonotic transmission to humans. Subsequently, he organised and led the nationally co-ordinated investigation in China to determine the zoonotic source of the SARS coronavirus, and advised the Chinese Government on the control measures to successfully avert a second SARS outbreak in Guangdong in early 2004.

He has accepted numerous invitations to be the keynote speaker, and the speaker and participant in talks, seminars, conferences and symposia on influenza and infectious diseases in Hong Kong and around the world. In November 2004, following the SARS outbreak, he attended the WHO Animal Influenza Network meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, the title of which was "Continuing the Endemicity of Highly Pathogenic H5N1 Influenza Virus in Southern China".

Professor Guan is a regular contributor to leading medical publications and holds memberships in various prestigious international and local groups, including but not limited to the American Society for Microbiology, American Society of Virology and the Influenza Research Response Group under the Food and Health Bureau of the Hong Kong SAR Government.