Personal Information

Assistant Professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences 

Office: (852) 3943 9986
Email: ellisfok@cuhk.edu.hk
Address: Room 624A, 6/F, Lo Kwee-Seong Integrated Biomedical Science Building, Area 39, CUHK
SBS Website: https://www2.sbs.cuhk.edu.hk/en-gb/people/academic-staff/prof-fok-kin-lam-ellis

Research Profile

Prof. Ellis Fok obtained his Ph.D. in physiology from the School of Biomedical Sciences (SBS), The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2009. He continued his research after graduation and then moved to the Department of Medicine, McGill University in Canada as a Post-doc Fellow in 2012. He joined SBS as a Research Assistant Professor in 2015, and he became an Assistant Professor in 2017. Prof. Fok’s main research focuses are male reproduction and germline stem cell biology. His work has revealed the important functions of a number of genes in regulating the homeostasis of spermatogonial stem cells and sperm functions, as well as their involvement in male infertility.  Over the years, he has published over 30 peer-review papers, including Science Translational Medicine, Cell Research and PNAS.

Research Interests

  1. Biology of spermatogonial stem cells, spermatogenesis and sperm functions
  2. Etiology and therapeutic regimen of male infertility and related diseases
  3. Male contraception

Selected Publications

  1. Li F, Han J, Cao T, Lam W, Fan B, Tang W, Chen S, Fok KL#, Li L#. “Design of self-assembly dipeptide hydrogels and machine learning via their chemical features.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2019; In press. (# co-correspondence)
  2. Li X*, Fok KL*, Guo J, Wang Y, Liu Z, Chen Z, Wang C, Ruan YC, Yu SS, Zhao H, Wu J, Jiang X, Chan HC. “Retinoic acid promotes stem cell differentiation and embryonic development by transcriptionally activating CFTR.” Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Cell Res, 2018; 1865(4):605-615. (*Equal contribution)
  3. Fok KL*, Bose R*, Su S, Yang M, Sheng K, Egorov MK, Culty M, Nagano M, Ruan YC, Chan HC, Iavarone A, Lasorella A, Ye J, Cencic R, Pelletier J, Xu W, Wing SS. “Huwe1 regulates the establishment and maintenance of spermatogonia by suppressing DNA damage response.” Endocrinology, 2017; 158(11):4000-4016. doi: 10.1210/en.2017-00396. (*Equal contribution)
  4. Fok KL, Chen H, Ruan YC, Chan HC. “Novel regulators of spermatogenesis.” (Review) Seminar in Cell and Developmental Biology, 2014 May; 29:31-42.
  5. Diao R*, Fok KL*, Chen H*, Yu MK, Duan Y, Chung CM, Li Z, Wu H, Hu Z, Ji Z, Zhen W, Ng CF, Gui Y, Cai Z, Chan HC. “Deficient human β-defensin-1 underlies male infertility associated with poor sperm motility and genital tract infection.” Science Translational Medicine, 2014; 6(249):249ra108. (*Equal contribution)