Dr Fuk-yee Kwong, Associate Professor of Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), was awarded the Senior Medical Research Fellowship recently for his excellent scientific research achievements.
Being a pioneering scientist in new catalyst design, Dr Kwong has secured continued support for seven consecutive years from the highly competitive General Research Fund of the Research Grants Council and was awarded a total of HK$4.3 million since 2005. Over the years, Dr Kwong has filed two US patents for his many breakthroughs in new catalyst design and synthetic methodology establishments, and put them to good use.
Dr Fuk-yee Kwong is currently the Deputy Principal Investigator for Hong Kong's team in an on-going collaborative European Commission project – 'OrganoCATAlytic Approaches towards Easily Synthesized, Economical, and High Yielding Oseltamivir Derivatives'. This is a pharmaceutical project concerning the development of 'Tamiflu' drug derivatives using concise and modular synthetic approaches to produce inexpensive drugs for the mutual benefit of pharmaceutical community and society at large.
The Senior Research Fellowships presentation ceremony was held on 21 March, 2013. This year, four exceptional scholars were named as Croucher Senior Research Fellows, including Dr Kwong. The Croucher Senior Research Fellowships scheme was first introduced in 1997. It is awarded to local academics who have excelled in scientific research work as judged by leading international scientists invited to provide confidential reviews of candidates nominated in a competitive exercise.
The value of each Senior Research Fellowship is about HK$900,000, which includes a personal grant of HK$60,000 to the recipient for research expenses. Funds are awarded to the universities of the fellowship recipients, enabling the university to recruit replacement teachers to take over the award winner's duties for the period of the fellowship. This enables the awardees to devote more time and effort to research work.
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