Prof. Lung is a leading researcher in cancer genomics. Her main research interests focus on elucidating the molecular genetic basis of two cancers of great concern to the Chinese population, namely nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and esophageal carcinoma (ESC). Using monochromosome transfer, genotyping, cytogenetics, nude mouse animal models, and oligonucleotide microarray approaches, she has discovered key critical regions and candidate tumor suppressor genes that contribute to the development of these tumors and may be useful diagnostic biomarkers for cancer detection. Her whole genome sequencing approaches to cancer have now paved the way to understanding the molecular genetic basis for and the molecular landscape of mutations in NPC and ESC.

Prof. Lung attended Cornell University and obtained her PhD from Stanford University. After being a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she joined the Dept. Microbiology at the University of Hong Kong. She then moved to the Dept. of Biology at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology and became one of its founding members. In 2009, she moved back to the University of Hong Kong as a Chair Professor in the Dept of Clinical Oncology.

Prof. Lung has led a Collaborative Research Fund group grant establishing an Esophageal Carcinoma Research Center (2007-2010), Area of Excellence group grant (2010-2018) directing the Center for Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Research, a Collaborative Research Fund group grant (2017-2019) on targeted genomics and genetic susceptibility in ESC, and a Theme-based Research Fund grant (2017-2021) on translational studies of tumor heterogeneity and molecular evolution in ESC.