Associate Professor, Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Research Area: Translational neuroscience; systems neuroscience; imaging methods and tools

Award Citation: The AYSF Committee acknowledges his pioneer works on uncovering the fundamental rules governing the functional organization of synaptic connections and would like to support his exploration in targeting a brainstem-hypothalamus neural circuit to extend health-span.

Bio: Ho Ko is a clinician-scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He holds a Bachelor of Medical Sciences (BMedSc, 2008), a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB, 2015) from CUHK, and a PhD in neuroscience from University College London (2012). In his early career, he advanced our understanding of the physical basis of sensory perception by uncovering several fundamental rules governing the connections between neurons. After years of medical training, he established his lab in 2016 and shifted his research focus from studying the neural basis of information processing, to its preservation in diseases. His current research employs preclinical and clinical approaches to investigate the neural circuitry and molecular mechanisms underlying nervous system dysfunction in aging and neurodegeneration, with the aim of guiding the development of disease-modifying therapeutics. Ho Ko has received several awards in recognition of his contributions to neuroscience, including being a runner-up for the 2014 Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology, a 2020 Croucher Innovation Award, a 2021 Excellent Young Scientist Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the 2022 Sir David Todd Lectureship.

Personal Web: http://neurology.mect.cuhk.edu.hk/kolab/