Creative grit: the Global South takes on COVID-19, Episode 2

Conversations with scientists

I asked Dr. Leo Poon, who co-directs the Hong Kong University Pasteur Research Pole, if he has a fleet of private jets. He does not. But he wishes he did. He and his team have helped colleagues all over the world on COVID-19. He and his team developed a diagnostic assay quite soon after the genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 became known. His is the lab that detected and identified SARS, the outbreak in 2003. And many other viruses. Like most science journalists, I report on COVID-19 and I had been wondering about researchers in the Global South and their COVID-19 related research. Here is the story I did for Nature Methods https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-022-01439-w. For that story, I spoke with Leo Poon about his work during the height of COVID-19 and now and his outlook for the future. This podcast is more from that conversation. (Art: J. Jackson)