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Hong Kong biotech leader forging ahead with groundbreaking cancer therapies

PostMag talks to 5 women innovators at the top of their game and pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery: here we meet Gina Jiang, managing director of the Hong Kong Institute of Biotechnology

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Gina Jiang is managing director of the Hong Kong Institute of Biotechnology. Photo: TMT
Christy Choi
Great minds blazing a trail: five women are leading the way in the realm of science. See our other features on Megan Lam, Florence Chan and Wendy Lam.

Gina Jiang took an unconventional route to the top. The daughter of an orthopaedic surgeon and an oil painter, the 44-year-old Taiwanese-Canadian has a degree in general medicine from Peking University but chose not to be a medical doctor or clinical researcher. Instead, Jiang has built a 20-plus-year career finding ways to make new therapies available to patients. She is the one who figures out what’s needed, who’s needed and what hurdles need to be overcome for treatments to go from the lab to hospital bedsides – otherwise known as translational medicine.

“It’s like leading an orchestra,” says Jiang, who coordinates a team of scientists, medical manufacturing experts, engineers and clinicians at the Hong Kong Institute of Biotechnology (HKIB) that ensures a multimillion-dollar cancer therapy called CAR-T cell treatment is available in the city.
CAR T-cell therapies involve T cells that have been genetically engineered to attack cancer cells. Illustration: Shutterstock
CAR T-cell therapies involve T cells that have been genetically engineered to attack cancer cells. Illustration: Shutterstock
Jiang is the managing director of the HKIB – a non-profit manufacturing laboratory affiliated with Chinese University – which produces “living” immunotherapy drugs tailor-made from a cancer patient’s own white blood cells. The treatment is currently being administered to a handful of patients at the Prince of Wales and Hong Kong Children’s hospitals. It’s an option for those who have not responded to conventional treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation.
The HKIB also produces other cell and gene therapy products, biologics (medications developed from organic life) and traditional Chinese medicine.
Cell therapy isn’t a miracle cure. It’s still ongoing and being studied, but the hope it brings and the visible improvements I’ve witnessed motivates me and makes me excited
Gina Jiang

Jiang has built several medical technology companies in Silicon Valley and Taipei, including FGMi Inc, which focuses on analysing patient needs to fast-track research into application. Design Thinking Foundry, a social enterprise she co-founded in 2017, puts patient experience at the centre of designing medical technology.

First sparks

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