HKU-Pasteur’s Carolyn Cohen was awarded the Li Ka Shing Prize 2022/23.
Dr Carolyn Cohen was awarded the Li Ka Shing Prize for the quality of his PhD research on the immune response to SRS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination in children compared with adults during the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Resulting in 14 publications, her research helped to define the immune response in children with SARS-CoV-2, showed the functional immune responses to COVID-19 vaccines in Hong Kong, and helped to inform vaccine policy around the world.
Carolyn's research explored the T cellular and other antibody functional responses in children and adults that can react across variants and prevent severe disease. She found that infected children generated lowe T cell and antibody responses to structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2, but directed their responses to non-structural parts of the virus. With the roll-out-of vaccines, she found that BioNTech and CoronaVac vaccines generated T cells and functional antibodies in children and adults, with higher antibodies from BioNTech, but equivalent T cells after two of three doses.
Carolyn is grateful for the many fruitful collaborations that have resulted in the success of this thesis. Alongside her research skills, she has learnt that interdisciplinary teamwork is vital and one of the most rewarding parts of research to answer important public health questions.
She is now a Post-doctoral Fellow under Professor Sophie Valkenburg and Professor Leo Poon and is developing projects and learning new methodologies to study the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses with pandemic potential.
About the Scholarship:
The Prizes are awarded on the basis of academic excellence to four PhD theses and two MPhil theses annually in and after 2005-06.
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