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Professor Fung said he was thrilled to receive the award. "It is not only greatly encouraging for me to know that my work to date is being recognised, but the fellowship will also enable me to concentrate on the most promising research areas in the near future. I look forward to the possibility of achieving further breakthroughs during the fellowship period."

The value of each fellowship is about US$100,000.  Funds are awarded to the university of each fellowship recipient, enabling the university to recruit replacement teachers to take over the recipient's teaching and administrative duties for the period of the fellowship. This enables the award winner to devote more time and effort to research work. Each winner will also receive a cash award of HK$60,000.

Professor Fung's research endeavours cover extensive spectra ranging from studies of robustness, outliers and influential observations detection and longitudinal data analysis in statistics; to credibility theory in actuarial science.

In the past decade, he has focused his research on forensic statistics, particularly in statistical DNA forensics, with great success. Recently, he extended his research into genetic epidemiology.

During the fellowship period, Professor Fung will focus on two aspects of research. Firstly, on DNA mixtures, particularly involving relatives or different ethnic groups, which could help detect rapists, multiple rapists and criminals of serious offences. Secondly, on locating imprinted genes in human beings through new statistical methods, which could contribute towards the diagnosis of genetic diseases.

A total of 28 HKU scholars have been awarded the Croucher Senior Research Fellowship, out of a total of 72 winners (including Senior Medical Research Fellowship), since its inception in 1997/98.

Two HKU medical students were also presented their Butterfield-Croucher Studentships by Mr Michael Suen today.

Miss Alice Cheung, Department of Medicine, was awarded funding for one year for her doctoral studies in the characterization of leukemic stem cells in acute myeloblastic leukemia based on aldehyde dehydrogenase activities.

Miss Olive Li, Department of Microbiology, was awarded funding for a year-and-a-half for her doctoral studies in the characterization of viral polymerase subunit compatibility between avian H5 and mammalian H1 influenza A viruses.

The Butterfield-Croucher Studentship is awarded to the best candidates in the medical and biological sciences category, selected from all applicants for the Croucher Foundation's Research Studentship. It carries an additional HK$10,000 annually on top of the regular HK$50,000 awarded for the Research Studentship.

For media enquiries, please contact Ms Denise Wong, Manager (Media), HKU (Tel.: 2859 2600 / E-mail: denise.wong@hku.hk)