Ruffling feathers

Guan Yi, the University of Hong Kong's amiable associate professor of microbiology, has been the poster boy for gene sequencing since he came to Hong Kong in 1997 as part of a WHO international team to help Hong Kong control the bird flu.

After completing his PhD in the US, the mainland-born scientist decided to take up an offer to be part of HKU's microbiology team. The team of flu experts - which included Malik Peiris and now-retired Ken Shortridge - has been at the forefront of bird flu research since then.

Led by chair professor Yuen Kwok-yung, the microbiologists discovered the Sars coronavirus. It was also their work and recommendation to cull all civet cats in Guangdong's wet markets, effectively stopping the second outbreak of Sars there earlier this year.

The HKU team often visited the mainland as part of the HKU-Shantou University's Joint Influenza Research Centre, established in 2001. Last November, the mainland's Ministry of Science and Technology approved the university's application to establish the HKU State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the first facility of its kind outside the mainland and the only one focusing on new infectious diseases.

But last week, Professor Guan received a slap in the face when officials from the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) visited the Shantou laboratory in Guangdong to talk to him about how mainland research should be conducted. He did not want to go into details, but it was understood he was warned he could be leaking state secrets by conducting research on the H5N1 outbreak among wild birds at the ecologically sensitive Qinghai Lake 'without prior approval' from authorities.

The release in the internationally respected Nature and Science journals of his studies, made in collaboration with other HKU microbiology professors and Shantou University professors, also apparently did not go down well with the MOA officials.