Yuen Kwok-yung - the stoic scientist soldiers on
The man behind the city's bird flu findings is no stranger to meeting dead ends in research, he simply lets go and moves on
Long before the H7N9 novel coronavirus emerged in the mainland, University of Hong Kong microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung, along with other researchers, warned the world that if another Sars-like pandemic struck, the disease would likely come from an animal. Some even went as far as to pinpoint the bird as a carrier.
Now that the new virus has emerged, Hong Kong has turned once more to the researchers it relied upon when the severe acute respiratory syndrome struck the city a decade ago.
Amid fears that the H7N9 would soon reach our shores, Yuen, whose research is ongoing, reassured the public not to be overly worried as so far, no poultry or wild bird in the city had tested positive for the disease.
The scientist, 57, who was honoured as an Asian hero by Time magazine after the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, even took time off from his work to motivate students in a conference earlier this month.
"My research doesn't always bear fruit. Actually, almost half of it goes down the drain," Yuen told the youth conference. "But it's okay to fail. You have to learn to put it down and to go for another one instead."
He must have been drawing on his experiences in life.