Biography:
Dr. Kao received his Ph. D. in Microbiology in 1999 from UBC under the supervision of Professor Julian Davies and subsequent postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School from 1999-2001. He joined the University of Hong Kong in 2001 and is now a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology, School of Clinical Medicine, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, and a Member of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at HKU. Dr. Kao’s research focuses on the application of chemical genetics in infectious diseases, especially emerging and re-emerging viral and bacterial infections. Dr. Kao’s employed chemical genetics to study virulence and antibiotics resistance in bacteria and has illustrated the potential use of anti-virulence compounds to treat MRSA infections. The research results have been published in top microbiology journals and Dr. Kao received the Innovation Academy Award from International Consortium of Prevention and Control of Infection (ICPIC) in Geneva, Switzerland in 2017 and most recently the 2019 State Scientific and Technological Progress Award.
Title : Curing and healing of staphylococcal skin infections the natural way – antivirulence therapy using naturally derived virulence-suppressing non-antibiotic compounds