CityUHK Research: Veterinary Medicine, Life Sciences, Infectious Diseases, Food Safety, and Marine Studies

City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) Comprehensive Information Database · 04 Research Module This article focuses on CityUHK’s research in life / health / environment directions: the One Health paradigm centred on the Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences (JCC, Hong Kong’s only veterinary college), emerging infectious diseases, food safety, animal welfare, and the marine research of the State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health (SKLMEH). For a rundown of laboratories and institutes, see institutes-and-labs.md; for a research overview, see overview-achievements.md.

# 1. Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences (JCC): Hong Kong’s Only Veterinary College

CityUHK’s most distinctive asset in the life sciences is that it runs Hong Kong’s only veterinary college.

• Chronology: CityUHK set the goal in 2008^※ of establishing Hong Kong’s first veterinary school and making it the first internationally accredited veterinary school in Asia. The College of Veterinary Medicine was founded in 2014 and renamed the Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences (JCC) in 2017 (the title reflects funding from the Hong Kong Jockey Club). That same year (2017), the inaugural cohort entered the six-year Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine (BVM) programme (per official JCC sources).
• Cornell Partnership: The BVM curriculum was jointly developed with the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine—Cornell’s veterinary medicine programme is consistently ranked among the world’s best (per the JCC admissions page^※).
• Dual Accreditation: According to a CityUHK press release (2023-09-25)^※, the JCC’s BVM programme is the first dual-accredited veterinary programme in Asia (recognised by international bodies including the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, RCVS), a key endorsement of its international positioning.

From “stating the ambition in 2008” to “securing Asia’s first dual accreditation in 2023,” this timeline spans fifteen years—encompassing four phases: site selection and establishment of the college, importing Cornell’s curricular system, admitting the first cohort, and finally achieving international accreditation. It offers a complete case study of CityUHK building an institution “from zero to one” in a field it did not traditionally dominate.

# 1.1 Four Research Themes and One Health

The JCC’s research programme is organised around One Health—the idea that animal health, human health, and environmental health are inseparable. Its BVM curriculum and research are tailored specifically for the Asian veterinary context and run through four core themes (per JCC official sources):

1. Animal Welfare
2. Aquatic Animal Health
3. Emerging Infectious Diseases
4. Food Safety

Underpinning this programme is the Centre for Applied One Health Research and Policy Advice (OHRP), established in October 2016^※. Its mission is to generate scientific knowledge and support evidence-based policy—from local to international levels—for the prevention and control of infectious animal diseases that affect human health and animal production/welfare (per the OHRP website).

# 2. Signature Research: Empirical Evidence of “Human-to-Cat” Transmission during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The narrative (per the Emerging Infectious Diseases paper). A notable piece of the JCC’s work on emerging infectious diseases is an empirical study conducted early in the COVID-19 pandemic on SARS-CoV-2 infection in domestic cats. According to the paper “SARS-CoV-2 in Quarantined Domestic Cats from COVID-19 Households or Close Contacts, Hong Kong,” published in the US CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases (December 2020 issue)^※, the research team tested respiratory and faecal samples from 50 quarantined domestic cats drawn from COVID-19 households or close-contact settings. They found 6 suspected cases of human-to-cat transmission; for one cat and its owner, the viral genome sequences proved identical.

One of the paper’s authors is Professor Vanessa Barrs (白雅詩), JCC Chair Professor of Companion Animal Health and Disease (Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases). This work is a textbook case of One Health’s concern with “disease transmission at the human–animal interface,” and it demonstrates the real-world relevance of CityUHK’s veterinary research to public health. A batch of quarantine-sample reports unravels into a dissection, through scientific methods, of an entire chain of transmission linking humans, animals, and the environment.

# 3. Life Sciences and Biomedical Sciences

Beyond veterinary medicine, CityUHK also has output in the life sciences (Department of Biomedical Sciences, cross-disciplinary work in chemistry and biological sciences), spanning areas such as infection and immunity, structural biology, and biomedical engineering. Some of this work is pursued in synergy with the JCC and the Institute of Digital Medicine (IDM; see institutes-and-labs.md).

# 4. Marine and Environmental Health Research (SKLMEH)

CityUHK’s leading role in marine science is embodied in the State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health (SKLMEH, formerly the State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution, SKLMP).

• Platform: SKLMP was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology in November 2009^※ and established in 2010. It serves as the lead platform for marine research in Hong Kong, convening over 50 interdisciplinary researchers from eight local universities (HKU, HKUST, CUHK, PolyU, CityU, HKBU, EdUHK, HKMU)^※. It was restructured and renamed SKLMEH in 2025 (for details, see institutes-and-labs.md).
• Directions: Marine pollution and ecotoxicology, coral health and conservation, microplastics monitoring, estuarine pollutants, deep-sea environmental impact, aquaculture pathogen surveillance, and more.
• Flagship Programme: The laboratory leads the UN-endorsed Global Estuaries Monitoring (GEM) Decade Programme, investigating environmental pollutants in estuaries worldwide.
• Lead Figure: The laboratory director is Professor Kenneth Leung Mei-yee (梁美儀) (per the SKLMEH website^※).

The marine science direction intersects with CityUHK’s School of Energy and Environment and the Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy (HKICE) on environmental health topics (see institutes-and-labs.md).