Professor Lyu Aiping is a world-leading scientist in system medicine and aptamer-based translational medicine. He is currently the Vice-President (Research and Development), Dean of Graduate School and Chair Professor of the School of Chinese Medicine of HKBU. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Chinese Medicine from Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 1983. He further obtained his Master’s and PhD degrees in Integrative Medicine in Pathology from the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine (now known as the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, CACMS) in 1987 and 1997 respectively.
In 2012, Professor Lyu joined HKBU as the Dean of Chinese Medicine and was appointed the Dr. Kennedy Y.H. Wong Endowed Professor in Chinese Medicine in the same year. Since then, Professor Lyu has provided excellent academic leadership for the ongoing development of the School of Chinese Medicine. Under his capable leadership, the School has made remarkable progress in offering solid teaching programmes, achieving strong research records and providing outstanding services to the professional field. Besides, he has also served as the director of several interdisciplinary research institutions at HKBU, including the Shum Yiu Foon Shum Bik Chuen Memorial Centre for Cancer and Inflammation Research, the Institute of Integrated Bioinformatics and Translational Science, and the Hong Kong Baptist University Joint Centre for Pain Research. In 2017, his team pursued a space life science study conducted on board China’s first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1, to investigate the effect of the CKIP-1 gene on bone formation under microgravity conditions in space. HKBU is the only university outside the Chinese Mainland to be invited to conduct a scientific research project on Tianzhou-1.
Professor Lyu’s research interests focus on the translational research in Chinese medicine including pharmacological and clinical evaluation on rheumatoid arthritis with re-classification and interventions, and the development of new drugs based on Chinese medicines and aptamer-based translational medicine. Over the years, he has successfully secured numerous research grants and funding supported by local, regional and national funding bodies. He has published more than 600 articles and obtained over 60 patents. He has achieved high Google Scholar citation counts of around 24,000, with a recent Google Scholar H-index score of 76 and he is the author of more than 30 books.
Professor Lyu’s research interests span from the clinical evaluation with RCT (randomised controlled trial) focusing on RA (rheumatoid arthritis) with Chinese medicine diagnosis to the standardisation of Chinese medicine diagnosis and new drug discovery. In accordance with the proposal made by Professor Lyu, the University established in 2012 the Law Sau Fai Institute for Advancing Translational Medicine in Bone and Joint Diseases and appointed Professor Lyu as Founding Director of the Institute. He led a research team and had developed the world’s first-ever osteoblast-targeting nucleic acid aptamer. His discovery of the therapeutic aptamer targeting Sclerostin loop-3 was granted Orphan Drug Designation by the US Food and Drug Administration for evaluating the therapeutic potential of promoting bone formation in osteogenesis imperfecta. He has also developed the first aptamer conjugate with the chemotherapy drug Paclitaxel, and it is currently being developed into an anti-cancer therapeutic.
Professor Lyu is a leading figure in the standardisation of Chinese medicine diagnosis, and his distinguished accomplishments have been widely recognised by the numerous awards and prizes he has received including a recipient of funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China’s National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars in 2007 and has been elected as a Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea in 2022 in recognition of his sustained academic excellence in systems medicine. Being a renowned expert and academic in the field, Professor Lyu has been appointed as Head and Spokesperson of the China Delegation, International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee on Traditional Chinese Medicine since 2009. Besides, he also currently serves as Director of Chinese Medicine Standardization Office in State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Chair Professor in the CACMS.
Updated as at 1 August 2023
“I am delighted that HKBU has appointed Professor Lyu Aiping, an experienced and distinguished scholar, as the Dr. Kennedy Y.H. Wong Endowed Professor in Chinese Medicine. I wish that through its outstanding team and international platform, the School of Chinese Medicine will develop more quality drugs and therapies under the able leadership of Professor Lyu, thereby spreading them to the world for the benefit of humankind.”