Organisation of the Department
When the Medical Faculty of the University of Hong Kong founded the Department of Biochemistry with three members of staff in 1960, they could not have imagined how the Department has grown today into a large, active research intensive community of over 60 researchers and research postgraduate students. The research community is an international mix of researchers from a number of countries - this international orientation of our staff and students provides an excellent and stimulating multicultural atmosphere within which innovative research can take place. Although Cantonese and Putonghua abounds in our research laboratories, English is the medium of instruction and the language for professional communication within the Department and the University of Hong Kong.
We currently have a total of eighteen senior staff members, fifteen of whom are full faculty working in both teaching and research, one of whom is Research Assistant Professors solely working in research, and two of whom are teaching consultants who teach both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Our research is boosted by the presence of nineteen post-doctoral fellows who work within the many research teams in the department, and also by over thirty research assistants/associates who work on specific scientific projects under faculty member guidance. As of Oct 2008, there are sixty-nine research postgraduate students pursuing MPhil or PhD degrees in our Department.
Research in the department is split into three themes: Molecular and Cellular Signalling, Molecular and Developmental Genetics, and Protein Structure and Function. There is significant cross-talk and cross-fertilisation of ideas between members of the many research teams in the department. Department faculty also participate as members in the newly created research Centres in the Faculty of Medicine - the Research Centre for Reproduction, Development and Growth, Healthy Ageing.