HKUMedXelerate2026 Top 10 Showcase (4th Edition): Airway Models and a Universal Flu Vaccine 🫁🦠

02 October 2026

HKUMed

Continuing our HKUMedXelerate 2026 Top 10 series, this edition shifts focus to respiratory health innovations—tackling the lack of human models for chronic airway diseases and the ongoing threat of seasonal and pandemic influenza.

Featured projects in this edition:

1. Scalable Patient-Derived Organoid Platform for Precision Medicine and Human Disease Modeling (Led by Prof. Michael Chan):

Developing a scalable platform that generates patient-specific airway, nasal, nasopharyngeal, and alveolar organoids from minimally invasive clinical samples.
By preserving key features of human tissue biology, these models support research in chronic respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, drug evaluation, and functional drug sensitivity testing in precision oncology.

2. C2iVax: A Universal Live-Attenuated Influenza Vaccine Platform for Broad Seasonal and Pandemic Influenza Protection (Led by Prof. Leo Poon):

Advancing a novel live-attenuated influenza vaccine designed to provide broad protection against seasonal and avian flu strains (including H5N1) without requiring annual updates.
Utilizing award-winning technologies to enhance immune recognition and ensure safety while allowing low-cost production, this intranasal vaccine aims to stimulate mucosal immunity and improve global pandemic preparedness.

Stay tuned as we approach the final stretch of our showcase series highlighting groundbreaking biomedical translations from HKUMed!

💡 Coming up next: We conclude the series with two standalone spotlights from Dr. Lanqi Gong and Prof. John Leung.

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