Laboratory of Nanosensor Imaging in Cell Therapy (NICE-Lab)

Prof. Kannie WY Chan is a Professor in Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Electrical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong. She is an adjunct Professor at Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHMI), and was an Assistant Professor (2014-2016) at the same department. She is the Director of InnoHK - Hong Kong Centre for Cerebro-cardiovascular Health Engineering (COCHE). 

Prof. Chan is an internationally recognized leader in the field of MRI research, with a particular focus on advanced MRI technologies, such as the Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (CEST) MRI. She is renowned for her work in developing advanced MRI techniques that enable the visualization and quantification of molecular processes in vivo. Her innovative efforts include, sensing the transplanted cell viability, imaging of neuropathology in many neurodegenerative diseases, especially the glucose-related events in the brain. One of the prominent example is the detection of neuropathological alterations during the disease progression of Alzheimer’s disease, including glymphatic function, myelin and aquaporin.  Prof. Chan has made seminal contributions to the field of CEST MRI, which allows for the non-invasive measurement of various metabolites and biomarkers in the body without metallic or radioactive labeling. She has pioneered the development of Dynamic Glucose-Enhanced (DGE) MRI, a technique that leverages glucose as a contrast agent to improve the detection and characterization of diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and cancer. It has opened new avenues for early diagnosis and monitoring of neurodegenerative conditions. In cancer theranostics, she developed CEST imaging platform to monitor the extracellular pH of tumors and tumor responses during treatment using advanced contrast biomaterials. Moreover, she has developed effective deep-learning post-processing of CEST images for identification of neuropathology. Her leadership in these areas has advanced the use of CEST MRI in both research, preclinical and clinical practice.   

Prof. Chan has established herself as a leading figure in the MRI community internationally and locally. She received the ISMRM Senior Fellow (ISMRM - the premium and world leading international society for MRI research with memberships worldwide, including clinicians, engineers and physicists from US, Europe and Asia (https://www.ismrm.org). Prof. Chan is recognized as one of the Stanford's top 2% most highly cited scientists. She is the deputy editor in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, who oversees all the CEST and MT manuscripts globally. She has received the prestigious Research Fellowship Scheme in 2022/2023 by the Hong Kong Research Grant Council (RGC). 

Prof. Chan has published over 100 original research articles, mostly in leading and high impact journals in the field, including a cover article in Nature Materials (Cover), Nature Biomedical Engineering, Science Advances, Theranostics, Stroke, J Controlled Release, and many articles in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and NMR in Biomedicine (top journals in MRI field). She is serving on two editorial boards out of the five leading MRI journals, named Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and NMR in Biomedicine. She also serves as reviewers for international grant applications from Germany, Swiss, Israel and grant applications from RGC. She is the Deputy Chair of HKIE Biomedical Division in sessions 22/23, 23/24 and 25/26, and is a HKIE Council member.

Postdoctoral fellows

PhD students

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Alumni