Biography:

Professor Juliana Chan (MBChB, MD, FRCP) is a physician scientist who graduated from The Liverpool University, United Kingdom with accreditations in endocrinology and clinical pharmacology. She is the Founding Director of the Hong Kong Institute of Diabetes and Obesity, Director of the CUHK Clinical Research Management Office, Chief Executive Officer, Asia Diabetes Foundation and Director, CUHK-PWH International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Centre of Education and CUHK-PWH IDF Centre of Excellence in Diabetes Care. 

Since joining CUHK in 1989, she has assembled a 60-member multidisciplinary team to set up multiple cohorts and biobanks and use big data to predict, prevent and personalize diabetes care. In 1989, she conducted the first randomized clinical trial in diabetes and hypertension in Asia and has been a leading figure in the global arena by serving on steering committees of landmark studies and international guidelines that have transformed diabetes care in the last 2 decades. Locally, she translated the team-based management and data monitoring in trial settings to real-world practice by setting up the Hong Kong Diabetes Register in 1995, along with multiple cohorts to define the causes, consequences and trajectories of diabetes and its complications. 

By combining logistics, information technology and team-based care, her team uses personalized data to stratify risk, discover new knowledge and inform decision-making at patient, provider and system levels. This care model has become a template for a territory-wide risk assessment and management program which has contributed to 50-70% decline in death rate in 0.8 million people with diabetes in Hong Kong in 2000-2016. In 2007, she digitalized this model and designed the first web-based Joint Asia Diabetes Evaluation (JADE) Technology complete with protocol, risk engine, reporting system and decision support to transform diabetes care through academic-industrial collaboration in Asia. 

Using a multidisciplinary, multiomic, multimethod approach, her team continues to use these biobanks and databases to study the missing heritability of young-onset diabetes and genetic regulation of diabetic complications, especially kidney disease. Apart from discovering a panel of Asian-relevant genetic markers and algorithms with award by the US and China Patent and Trademark Office, she is now working with industry to discover druggable pathways for precision medicine. Her team has developed state-of-the-art-methodologies, including insulin infusion clamps to evaluate the safety and efficacy of continuous glucose monitoring systems, novel compounds, including Chinese Medicine, and drug delivery systems in pursuit of prevention of diabetes. 

She has published over 700 papers and 20 book chapters and trained over 60 postgraduate students and fellows. In 2011, she received the China Medical Women’s Association Wuzhou Women Sciences and Technology Award under the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. In 2018, she was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by Monash University, Australia. In 2019, she received the Harold Rifkin Award for Distinguished International Service in the Cause of Diabetes of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), which honours individuals who have demonstrated outstanding research, evaluation and care in the field of diabetes from a global perspective and with an international impact. 

Specialised Research Area(s):

Epidemiology, genetics, clinical trials and care models

1. Wu H, Lau ESH, Ma RCW, Kong APS, Wild SH, Goggins W, Chow E, So WY, Chan JCN and Luk AOY. Secular trends in all-cause and cause-specific mortality rates in people with diabetes in Hong Kong, 2001-2016: a retrospective cohort study. Diabetologia. 2020;63:757-766.

2. Ke C, Lau E, Shah BR, Stukel TA, Ma RC, So WY, Kong AP, Chow E, Clarke P, Goggins W, Chan JCN, Luk A. Excess burden of mental illness and hospitalization in young-onset type 2 diabetes: a population-based cohort study. Annals of internal medicine. 2019;170:145-154.

3. Luk AOY, Lau ESH, Lim C, Kong APS, Chow E, Ma RCW and Chan JCN. Diabetes-Related Complications and Mortality in Patients With Young-Onset Latent Autoimmune Diabetes: A 14-Year Analysis of the Prospective Hong Kong Diabetes Register. Diabetes Care. 2019;42:1042-1050.

4. Jiang G, Luk AOY, Tam CHT, Xie F, Carstensen B, Lau ESH, Lim CKP, Lee HM, Ng ACW, Ng MCY, Ozaki R, Kong APS, Chow CC, Yang X, Lan HY, Tsui SKW, Fan X, Szeto CC, So WY, Chan JCN, Ma RCW and Hong Kong Diabetes Register and Theme-based Research Scheme Study Group. Progression of diabetic kidney disease and trajectory of kidney function decline in Chinese patients with Type 2 diabetes. Kidney international. 2019;95:178-187.

5. Yeung MW, Wong GL, Choi KC, Luk AO, Kwok R, Shu SS, Chan AW, Lau ESH, Ma RCW, Chan HL, Chan JC, Wong VW and Kong AP. Advanced liver fibrosis but not steatosis is independently associated with albuminuria in Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes. Journal of hepatology. 2017 pii: S0168-8278(17)32334-6.

6. Zhou Y, Chung ACK, Fan R, Lee HM, Xu G, Tomlinson B, Chan JCN and Kong APS. Sirt3 deficiency increased the vulnerability of pancreatic beta cells to oxidative stress-induced dysfunction. Antioxidants & redox signaling. 2017;27:962-976.

7. Jiang G, Hu C, Tam CH, Lau ES, Wang Y, Luk AO, Yang X, Kong AP, Ho JS, Lam VK, Lee HM, Wang J, Zhang R, Tsui SK, Ng MC, Szeto CC, Jia W, Fan X, So WY, Chan JC and Ma RC. Genetic and clinical variables identify predictors for chronic kidney disease in type 2 diabetes. Kidney international. 2016;89:411-20.

8. Lou S, Lee HM, Qin H, Li JW, Gao Z, Liu X, Chan LL, Kl Lam V, So WY, Wang Y, Lok S, Wang J, Ma RC, Tsui SK, Chan JC, Chan TF and Yip KY. Whole-genome bisulfite sequencing of multiple individuals reveals complementary roles of promoter and gene body methylation in transcriptional regulation. Genome biology. 2014;15:408.

9. Yeung RO, Zhang Y, Luk A, Yang W, Sobrepena L, Yoon KH, Aravind SR, Sheu W, Nguyen TK, Ozaki R, Deerochanawong C, Tsang CC, Chan WB, Hong EG, Do TQ, Cheung Y, Brown N, Goh SY, Ma RC, Mukhopadhyay M, Ojha AK, Chakraborty S, Kong AP, Lau W, Jia W, Li W, Guo X, Bian R, Weng J, Ji L, Reyes-dela Rosa M, Toledo RM, Himathongkam T, Yoo SJ, Chow CC, Ho LL, Chuang LM, Tutino G, Tong PC, So WY, Wolthers T, Ko G, Lyubomirsky G and Chan JC. Metabolic profiles and treatment gaps in young-onset type 2 diabetes in Asia (the JADE programme): a cross-sectional study of a prospective cohort. The lancet Diabetes & Eendocrinology. 2014;2:935-43.

10. Chan JC, Zhang Y and Ning G. Diabetes in China: a societal solution for a personal challenge. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. 2014;2:969-79.