Prof. Kelvin To

Department Chairperson and Clinical Professor

Department of Microbiology

School of Clinical Medicine

LKS Faculty of Medicine

The University of Hong Kong

Professor Kelvin To is a Clinical Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Microbiology, School of Clinical Medicine, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong. He also serves as Director of the Carol Yu Centre for Infection and holds the Tam Wah-Ching Professorship in Medical Science. He completed his training in clinical microbiology at Queen Mary Hospital. Additionally, he is a fellow of the Hong Kong College of Pathologists, the Royal College of Pathologists, the Royal College of Physicians, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He also serves on the Editorial Board of Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Vaccine, hLife and Virus Research. He is listed among Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers.

Professor To’s research focuses on emerging infections, especially on the risk assessment, viral fitness, and evolutionary dynamics of influenza viruses (including avian strains H5N1, H7N9, and H9N2) and SARS-CoV-2. His team establishes well-differentiated human nasal and respiratory tract organoid models to evaluate viral adaptation, tissue tropism, zoonotic potential, and innate host immune responses directly at the human epithelial barrier. Additionally, his work encompasses serosurveillance, antiviral resistance monitoring, non-invasive saliva diagnostic testing, and metagenomic next-generation sequencing.