I was born in London, UK, in 1946. I received my secondary education at Watford Boys' Grammar School outside London, majoring in Biology, Chemistry and Physics and representing my school teams at cricket and rugby. I continued these sporting interests at Cardiff University in South Wales where I completed my BSc degree in Microbiology. I remained in South Wales to developed my interest in immunology, researching for my MSc in hypersensitivity lung disease, with further studies leading to a PhD in tumour immunology, both degrees from the Welsh National School of Medicine. My post-doctoral studies on transplantation immunosuppression were completed at the Kidney Research Unit Foundation, Cardiff.

In 1978 I became Hospital Immunologist at Queen Mary Hospital, the teaching hospital of the University of Hong Kong, and my task was to develop the new Clinical Immunology Division within the Pathology Department. With the help of an enthusiastic team of technicians we have established a comprehensive service for patients with autoimmune diseases, allergy and immunodeficiency which serves as a referral centre for the whole of Hong Kong.

My research interests are centred on technology development for clinical (ie. cost effective) application. I have developed simple protocols for evaluation of humoral immunity, evaluated the function of B1a-cells in autoimmunity and more recently developed assays for affordable cytokine profiling. This technology has been applied in studies on thyroiditis, lupus, pregnancy, bone marrow transplantation, immunodeficiency (including HIV infection), traditional Chinese medicine and stress.

I firmly believe that psychological stress adversely affects the cytokine balance and I am interested in obtaining further evidence that successful stress management can improve this balance and hence the natural control of diseases like cancer, allergy and autoimmunity.

I am currently Senior Hospital Immunologist and Head of the Clinical Immunology Division, Queen Mary Hospital, and Honorary Associate Professor, The University of Hong Kong. I am a member of the Hong Kong Government Scientific Committee on AIDS. I am married to Josephine, who is a medical technologist, and we have three grown-up children, one tiny granddaughter and three scruffy mongrel dogs.