The Department of Clinical Oncology specialises in the full spectrum of non-surgical cancer services including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, biological targeted therapy and palliative care. It is a renowned centre for research, both clinical and non-clinical, especially for nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and provides state-of-the-art cancer management at Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong and The University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital on the Mainland.

Professor Guan Xin-Yuan is the Sophie Y M Chan Professor in Cancer Research at the Department of Clinical Oncology, The University of Hong Kong (HKU). He is also the Director of the Centre for Cancer Research at HKU. Professor Guan’s major contributions in cancer research include the development and application of micro-FISH technique, the identification and characterisation of oncogenes AIB1, eIF5A2 and CHD1L, and the identification and characterisation of functionally defined liver and esophageal cancer stem cell (CSC) subsets marked by CD133 and CD90, respectively.

Building on his expertise, Professor Guan and his research team are investigating cancer stem cells and cancer microenvironments, with a focus on identifying novel functional CSC markers, as well as investigating the role of FGFR2-positive fibroblasts in constructing an esophageal carcinoma microenvironment. Another aspect of his work is in the molecular characterisation of tumour microenvironments, especially of cancer fibroblasts secreted proteins. He is also researching the identification and characterisation of cancer-related genes and micro-RNAs in hepatocellular, esophageal and nasopharyngeal carcinomas.

Professor Guan Xin-Yuan received his PhD degree from the University of Arizona in the United States in 1993. He was immediately recruited by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institute of Health as a Senior Staff Fellow, and was appointed Head of the Unit of Microdissection Technology at the NHGRI in 1994. In 1999, he joined the Department of Clinical Oncology of the LKS Faculty of Medicine at HKU as an Associate Professor, and was subsequently promoted to full Professor in 2007. Professor Guan has been Deputy Director of the State Key Laboratory for Liver Research at HKU since 2010. He is also a Visiting Professor at Sun Yat-Sen University and Harbin Medical University.

Professor Guan is the recipient of many honours and awards including the National Outstanding Young Research Award from the Natural Sciences Foundation of China in 1998, the Outstanding Research Award from HKU in 2012, the State Natural Sciences Award of China (Second-Class) in 2010, the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award of China (First-Class) in 2012, and the Science and Technology Prize of Higher Education of China (Second-Class) in 2014. He is also listed among the top 1% of the most cited scholars by the ISI’s Essential Science Indicators.

He has published more than 270 peer-reviewed papers in international journals including Nature Genetics, Cell Stem Cell, Nature Medicine and Gastroenterology, and his work has been cited over 18,000 times. Since 2009, he has been the Chairman of the University’s Department Research Postgraduate Committee. From January 2010 to 2013 he was a member of the Faculty Human Resource Committee. And from 2014 he has been a member of the Committee of Promotion and Tenure Panel at the LKS Faculty of Medicine.