Doctor of Medicine by Research (Imperial College London)

Doctor of Philosophy (University of Cambridge)

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Dr. Erik Fung graduated from the medical school of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in 2004 with the Hong Kong Medical Association Prize and the Cardiothoracic Surgery Prize. From 2002-2003, he briefly deferred from medical studies and worked as Visiting Research Fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston. After internship in Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong, he obtained a PhD in Medical Genetics (immunogenetics of autoimmune type 1 diabetes) from the University of Cambridge, UK while a Prince Philip Graduate Exhibition scholar and recipient of the competitive Postdoctoral Fellowship from Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. He later completed an MD (Res) at Imperial College London, focusing on lifecourse epidemiology of cardio-metabolic disorders in multi-national cohorts. After completing internal medicine residency in Boston, Massachusetts, and cardiology fellowship at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, New Hampshire, he went on to train in advanced heart failure/transplant cardiology at the Keck Medical Center of University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA. In 2016, he was recruited to join the Faculty of Medicine, CUHK as Assistant Professor (Clinical), and since 2023 he has been appointed tenured Associate Professor (Clinical) , Presidential Fellow, and Chair & Chief of Division of Cardiology at the School of MEDICINE, CUHK-Shenzhen.

Dr. Fung was recipient of Excellence in Teaching Awards 2012 and 2013 from the Department of Medicine at Dartmouth, and the Exemplary Teachers’ Award for the CUHK Junior Medical Clerkship 2016/2017 and 2017/2018. He has filed 3 patents and published over 50 research articles in journals including Nature Genetics, Nature Protocols, Circulation, Lancet Healthy Longevity, among others. His research has been supported by investigator-initiated grants from the Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF) of the Food & Health Bureau and the Research Grants Council (RGC GRF) of Hong Kong, and he was a winner of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine’s Healthy Longevity Catalyst Award 2021. He is currently an Associate Editor of Open Heart (BMJ).

Professional Qualifications

Diplomate, American Board of Internal Medicine (Internal Medicine)

Diplomate, American Board of Internal Medicine (Cardiovascular Disease)

Diplomate, National Board of Echocardiography, USA

Certification, Heart Failure Association of European Society of Cardiology

Specialist in Cardiology (The Medical Council of Hong Kong)

Selected Publications

*Corresponding author

1. Erik Fung, S M Timothy Tang, James P Canner, Kunio Morishige, Joseph F Arboleda-Velasquez, Angelo A Cardoso, Nadia Carlesso, Jon C Aster, Masanori Aikawa. Delta-like 4 induces Notch signaling in macrophages: implications for inflammation. Circulation 2007;115:2948–2956. Doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.106.675462 (over 250 citations)
2. Erik Y M G Fung, Deborah J Smyth, Joanna M M Howson, Jason D Cooper, Neil M Walker, Linda S Wicker, John A Todd. Analysis of 17 autoimmune disease-associated variants in type 1 diabetes identifies 6q23/TNFAIP3 as a susceptibility locus. Genes and Immunity 2009;10:188–191. Doi: 10.1038/gene.2008.99 (over 300 citations)
3. Calliope A Dendrou, Vincent Plagnol, Erik Fung, Jennie H M Yang, Kate Downes, Jason D Cooper, Sarah Nutland, Gillian Coleman, Matthew Himsworth, Matthew Hardy, Oliver Burren, Barry Healy, Neil M Walker, Kerstin Koch, Willem H Ouwehand, John R Bradley, Nicholas J Wareham, John A Todd, Linda S Wicker. Cell-specific protein phenotypes for the autoimmune locus IL2RA using a genotype-selectable human bioresource. Nature Genetics 2009;41:1011–1015. Doi: 10.1038/ng.434 (over 300 citations)
4. Erik Fung*, Laura Esposito, John A Todd, Linda S Wicker. Multiplexed immunophenotyping of human antigen-presenting cells in whole blood by polychromatic flow cytometry. Nature Protocols 2010;5:357–370. Doi: 10.1038/nprot.2009.246
5. Erik Fung*, Marjo-Riitta Järvelin, Rahul N Doshi, Jerold S Shinbane, Steven K Carlson, Luanda P Grazette, Philip M Chang, Rajbir S Sangha, Heikki V Huikuri, Nicholas S Peters. Electrocardiographic patch devices and contemporary wireless cardiac monitoring. Frontiers in Physiology 2015;6:149. Doi: 10.3389/fphys.2015.00149 (over 150 citations)
6. Ying Tang, Erik Fung, Anping Xu, Hui-Yao Lan. C-reactive protein and ageing. Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology 2017;44 Suppl 1:9-14. Doi: 10.1111/1440-1681.12758.  (over 100 citations)
7. Erik Fung*, Elsie Hui, Xiaobo Yang, Leong Ting Lui, King Fai Cheng, Qi Li, Yiting Fan, Daljit Sahota, Bosco HM Ma, Jenny SW Lee, Alex PW Lee, Jean Woo. Heart failure and frailty in the community-living elderly population: what the UFO study will tell us. Frontiers in Physiology 2018;9:347. Doi: 10.3389/fphys.2018.00347.
8. Xiaobo Yang, Josep Lupón, Maria T Vidán, Caleb Ferguson, Paloma Gastelurrutia, Phillip J Newton, Peter S Macdonald, Héctor Bueno, Antoni Bayés-Genís, Jean Woo, Erik Fung*. Impact of frailty on mortality and hospitalization in chronic heart failure: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of American Heart Association 2018;7:e008251. Doi: 10.1161/JAHA.117.008251. (over 100 citations)
9. Jean Woo, Xiaobo Yang, Leong Ting Lui, Qi Li, King Fai Cheng, Alex P W Lee, Jenny S W Lee, Erik Fung. Utility of the FRAIL questionnaire in detecting heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. Journal of Nutrition Health and Aging 2019;23:373–377. Doi: 10.1007/s12603-019-1158-1.
10. Polakit Teekakirikul, Wenjuan Zhu, Helen C Huang, Erik Fung*. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: an overview of genetics and management. Biomolecules 2019;9:878. Doi: 10.3390/biom9120878.
11. Lee-Ling Lim, Eric SH Lau, Erik Fung, Heung-Man Lee, Ronald CW Ma, Claudia HT Tam, Willy KK Kong, Alex SW Ng, Elaine Chow, Andrew OY Luk, Alicia Jenkins, Juliana CN Chan, Alice PS Kong. Circulating branched-chain amino acids with incident heart failure in type 2 diabetes: the Hong Kong Diabetes Register. Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews 2020;36:e3253.  Doi: 10.1002/dmrr.3253.
12. Erik Fung*, Leong Ting Lui, Finn Gustafsson, Forrest CF Yau, Jason CS Leung, Petri Wiklund, Marjo-Riitta Järvelin, Peter S Macdonald, Jean Woo. Predicting 10-year mortality in older adults using VO₂max, oxygen uptake efficiency slope and frailty class. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology 2020 Mar 31:2047487320914435. Doi: 10.1177/2047487320914435
13. Ganesan Karthikeyan, Erik Fung, Roger S-Y Foo. Alternative hypothesis to explain disease progression in rheumatic heart disease. Circulation 2020;142:2091–2094. Doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.050966.
14. Sek-Ying Chair, Ho Yu Cheng, Kai Chow Choi, Elaine KC Siow, Xi Cao, Erik Fung*. Influenza-Associated Hospitalizations and Risk of Subsequent Heart Failure Hospital Admissions: A 20-Year Territorywide Registry Study in Hong Kong, China. American Journal of Epidemiology 2021;190:779–785. Doi: 10.1093/aje/kwaa263.
15. Erik Fung*, Ho Yu Cheng, Kai Choi Chow, David SC Hui, Cheng Yang, Sek Ying Chair. Differential Risks For Heart Failure Hospitalization Following Severe Respiratory Infections By Common Pathogens. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology 2021 Jul 20:zwab123. Doi: 10.1093/eurjpc/zwab123.
16. Erik Fung*, Leong-Ting Lui, Lei Huang, King Fai Cheng, Gloria HW Lau, Yi Ting Chung, Behzad Nasiri Ahmadabadi, Suyi Xie, Jenny SW Lee, Elsie Hui, Wing Yee So, Joseph JY Sung, Irwin King, William B Goggins, Queenie Chan, Marjo-Riitta Järvelin, Ronald CW Ma, Elaine Chow, Timothy Kwok. Characterising frailty, metrics of continuous glucose monitoring, and mortality hazards in older adults with type 2 diabetes on insulin therapy (HARE): a prospective, observational cohort study. The Lancet Healthy Longevity 2021;2:e724–e735. Doi: 10.1016/S2666-7568(21)00251-8.
17. Suyi Xie, Qi Li, Andrea OY Luk, Hui-Yao Lan, Paul KS Chan, Antoni Bayés-Genís, Francis KL Chan, Erik Fung*. Major adverse cardiovascular events and mortality prediction by circulating GDF-15 in patients with type 2 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Biomolecules 2022;12:934. Doi: 10.3390/biom12070934.
18. Erik Fung*, Kwan Hung Ng, Timothy Kwok, Leong-Ting Lui, Saranya Palaniswamy, Queenie Chan, Lee-Ling Lim, Petri Wiklund, Suyi Xie, Cheryl Turner, Amany Elshorbagy, Helga Refsum, Jason CS Leung, Alice PS Kong, Juliana CN Chan, Marjo-Riitta Järvelin, Jean Woo. Divergent survival outcomes associated with elevated branched-chain amino acid levels among older adults with or without hypertension and diabetes: a validated, prospective, longitudinal follow-up study. Biomolecules 2023;13:1252. doi: 10.3390/biom13081252.
19. Erik Fung*, Eunice Chan, Kwan Hung Ng, Ka Man Yu, Huijun Li, Yulan Wang. Towards Clinical application of GlycA and GlycB for early detection of (pre)diabetes and cardiovascular disease: recent evidence and updates. Journal of Inflammation 2023;20:32.doi: 10.1186/s12950-023-00358-7.
20. Quin E. Denfeld, Sunita Jha, Erik Fung, Tiny Jaarsma, Susan Joseph, Gordon Reeves, Jonathan Afilalo, Nadine Beerli, Lavanya Bellumkonda, Sabina de Geest, Victoria Vaughn Dickson, Louise Fuller, Eiran Gorodeski, Emer Joyce, Jon Kobashigawa, Mat Maurer, Oliver Mauthner, Julee McDonagh, Izabella Uchmanowicz, JoAnn Lindenfeld; Peter Macdonald. Assessing and Managing Frailty in Advanced Heart Failure: An International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation Consensus Statement. Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation 2023 Nov 29:S1053-2498(23)02028-4. doi: 10.1016/j.healun.2023.09.013.