Dr Catherine Hor Hong-Huan, Research Assistant Professor from the Department of Chemistry, receives Collaborative Research Fund (CRF): One-off CRF Exercise 2020/21 from Research Grants Council (RGC).

The Collaborative Research Project Grant is one of the most competitive research grants in Hong Kong that supports multi-investigator, multi-disciplinary projects in order to encourage more research groups to engage in creative and high quality cross-disciplinary projects. As the team leader, Dr Hor leads a team of international scientists with complementary expertise, including virologists, neuroscientists, and synthetic chemist from HKBU Department of Chemistry, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Duke-NUS Medical School, and National University of Singapore (NUS) to embark on a cross-disciplinary research project. The team investigates the viral entry mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 in the neurons, and its long-term neuropathological consequences. Given that COVID-19 patients exhibit multiple neurological features, the project is of timely and significant scientific impact. The project shall uncover new insights on SARS-CoV-2 entry mechanism into neurons, and will offer a better understanding of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis in the central nervous system. These findings shall lay the foundation for the development of novel therapeutics tackling SARS-CoV-2 induced neuropathology.

Source: UGC Website