Academic and Professional Qualifications

MB ChB (CUHK), MRCP (UK), FHKCP, FHKAM (Medicine)

Biography

Dr. Thomas Leung aims to translate science into health service. He is the first interventional neurologist in Hong Kong, and a neuro-sonologist certified by the American Society of Neuroimaging. On an international level, Dr. Leung is a co-chair of the Global Executive Committee of MT 2020, a global initiative of the Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology (SVIN) based in the US for improving access of emergency thrombectomy for ischemic stroke. He is also the national coordinator for Safe Implementation of Treatment in Stroke (SITS). Countrywide, Dr. Leung is a council member in the National Endovascular Treatment for Stroke Committee, and Stroke Prevention and Risk Factor Control Committee, China. Locally, Dr. Leung is the President of the Hong Kong Neurological Society. As the Chief of Stroke Service in the Prince of Wales Hospital, Dr. Leung performed the first intracranial Wingspan stenting in Asia, pioneered drug-eluting stents in cervical steno-occlusions and was the first in the region to apply retrievable stents and suction device in emergency thrombectomy for hyperacute ischemic strokes. Dr. Leung is a trainer for clinical neurology and endovascular treatment for ischemic strokes, and plays an active role in the Central Committee (Stroke), the Hospital Authority that implements intravenous thrombolysis and endovascular thrombectomy services for the whole territory of Hong Kong. As the stroke service leader, Dr. Leung and his stroke team in the Prince of Wales Hospital won the ‘Outstanding Team Award 2019’ selected by the Hospital Authority among all public hospital services in Hong Kong.

Dr. Leung focused on intracranial atherosclerosis, stroke imaging, treatment and outcome. He has published as the first or corresponding author in high-impact specialty journals including Annals of Neurology, Neurology, Stroke, JAMA Neurology, and Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry (JNNP). He is an assistant editor for Stroke (official journal of American Heart Association), an associate editor for International Journal of Stroke (official journal of World Stroke Organization), a guest associate editor for Frontiers of Neurology, and a reviewer for journals including The Lancet, Annals of Neurology, Neurology, Stroke, JNNP, Hypertension, American Journal of Neuroradiology, European Journal of Neurology, and International Journal of Stroke. Dr. Leung has obtained 8 competitive grants as principal investigator, and another 19 GRF/HMRF grants as co-investigator. Internationally, Dr. Leung was an expert witness at the hearing of the US Food and Drug Administration, and had lectured in conferences organized by World Federation of Neurology, World Stroke Organization, American Stroke Association, European Stroke Organization, International Stroke Genetics Consortium, and the Ministry of Health, China. Dr. Leung has solicited private donations over US$ 3.85 million for CUHK, facilitating the establishment of Kwok Tak Seng Center for Stroke Research and Intervention in 2013 and the CUHK Biobank and Bioresource for Cerebrovascular Diseases in 2015, the first of its kind in Hong Kong. Dr. Leung is currently the Director for these two facilities.

Dr. Leung currently serves as the Assistant Dean (Education) for the Faculty of Medicine, CUHK. He has been consistently above 80% centile in the teaching evaluation score since 2012. He was the recipient of ‘The Teacher of The Year Award’ in 2019 by the Faculty of Medicine, CUHK. He supervised 10 PhD students and 3 research assistant professors. He was the course director for Master of Science in Stroke and Clinical Neurosciences, CUHK, and the western medicine program, the School of Chinese Medicine.

Dr. Leung is a Fellow of the American Heart association (FAHA) and European Stroke Organization (FESO). He received an endowed professorship as Lee Quo Wei Associate Professor of Neurology in 2013; the orator for Professor G. Arjundas Oration, Madras Institute of Neurology, Madras Medical College, India in 2008; the Second Prize in Medical Technology by the Chinese Medical Association in 2011 for ‘Angioplasty and stenting for intracranial stenosis in Chinese’; the prestigious First Class Award of the 2011 Higher Education Outstanding Scientific Research Output Award (Science and Technology) by the Ministry of Health, China, for ‘Intracranial Large Artery Atherosclerotic Stroke: Epidemiology, Diagnosis, Pathogenesis, Imaging and Treatment’; the HIMSS-Elsevier Digital Health Award 2013 (Asia-Pacific Region) for his pioneering work in telemedicine; and the Second Prize in the State of Scientific and Technological Progress Award, China in 2014 for ‘Strategies in cerebral revascularization’. As the stroke team leader in the Prince of Wales Hospital, Dr. Leung and his team was the winner of the ‘Outstanding Team Award 2019’ selected by the Hospital Authority among all public hospital services in Hong Kong.

Dr. Leung is the Director of the CUHK SHKP Kwok Brain Health Research Centre, in parallel with her sister centre, Henry and Allison McCance Centre for Brain Health in Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. A recruitment of 5000 subjects for a population-based cohort in Hong Kong is underway, consisting of healthy citizens and subjects at risk of brain diseases aged 45-60 years. We shall gather baseline and follow-up parameters including genomics/metabolomics, stool microbiota, cardiovascular risk profile, linguistics, cognition and psychology batteries, and brain imaging. With a goal to setting up a brain health paradigm for the future, the Centre will bring together patients, healthy subjects and researchers and study how cultural, physical, psychological and environmental changes across the lifespan affect brain health.