“Antimicrobial resistance was often neglected, until recently when people realized its significant impacts to global societies”
HKU-Pasteur celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, it is the occasion to show you a little bit more about the people who make this lab a major research pole on infectious diseases, an innovative teaching center and a very special place for us all.
Today, meet Dr Hein Min TUN, a public health veterinarian who joined HKU-Pasteur Research Pole as a Principal Investigator in 2018. His group combines conventional microbiology and molecular biology techniques with cutting-edge sequencing technologies, as well as bioinformatics, statistical and epidemiological approaches, to study the composition, function, and dynamics of human and animal microbiomes in health and disease:
“Being a veterinary public health researcher, one of my primary research programs at HKU-Pasteur aims to investigate the contribution of antibiotic use in animal agriculture to human AMR infections.
Besides, my lab uses different animal models to decipher the mechanistic roles of the gut microbiome in several human diseases, including obesity, diabetes, mental health, and respiratory viral infections.
Antimicrobial resistance was often neglected, until recently when people realized its significant impacts to global societies. The WHO’s 2015 Global Action Plan on AMR set out five strategic objectives that include strengthening knowledge through surveillance and research. The Director of the School of Public Health at HKUMed, Professor Keiji Fukuda, played a key role in this successful repositioning for global awareness of AMR issues.
By looking at multiple dimensions of the problem through the lens of One Health components, we may widen our perspectives on diseases/problems that we would not have otherwise seen. This will inform better interventions. I see the contrasts among different science disciplines as largely artificial. We all should attempt to explore how the approach of one discipline could be beneficial in another. Quite often, interdisciplinary scientific research leads to breakthroughs that have broader societal impacts.”
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