Five CityUHK academics have been awarded prestigious grants under the Senior Research Fellow Scheme (SRFS) and Research Fellow Scheme (RFS) (2024/25) of the Research Grants Council (RGC) in recognition of their distinguished research achievements and the potential impact of their proposed research projects.

Congratulations to Professor Chun Kit Kwok, Associate Professor from the Department of Chemistry of the College of Science (CSCI), as one of the awardees of the RGC Research Fellow Scheme in 2024/25. Professor Kwok has pioneered the innovative development of nucleic acid aptamers for targeting functional RNA structures, specifically RNA G-quadruplex (G4). His RFS winning project title is “Developing RNA Structure-targeting Bi-/multi-functional L-aptamer-based Chimeras for Gene Regulation”.

“Our team recently developed a number of original Systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment platforms and novel L-RNA aptamers,” said Professor Kwok, adding that this specific project aims to “further expand and advance L-aptamer technologies and tools to target RNA G-quadruplex (G4) and other important RNA structural elements in different biological systems for the first time.”

Supported by the funding, the laboratory will also establish a platform to identify and characterise RNA structure-targeting aptamers and engineer diverse aptamer-based tools for biological and therapeutic uses.

The RGC has approved ten awards for each scheme in this round, and CityUHK has secured five awards in total. Each SRFS and RFS awardee will receive a fellowship grant of approximately $8M and $5.3M, respectively, for 5 years.

Congratulations to Professor Kwok!

This article originated from CityUHK News Centre.