Lap-Chee Tsui

Tsui became the centre of controversy following Chinese Vice-Premier Li Keqiang's visit to the centenary ceremony of Hong Kong University on 18 August 2011. During the Vice Premier's visit, police used what a review concluded was unnecessary and unjustifiable force to push some students into a stairwell away from the Vice-Premier. Tsui was later accused by the students of pandering to the Chinese central government and failing to protect both student's freedom of speech and expression, as well as academic freedoms.

In 2006, the fifth floor of the University of Toronto's Donnelly CCBR building was named after Tsui Lap-chee to honour his research work.

He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in May 2002 and assumed office as the fourteenth Vice-Chancellor of the university with effect from 1 September 2002. As of October 2011, he had decided not to seek re-appointment. He served until 31 March 2014.

In 1991, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, and in October 2007, he was decorated as Knight of the Légion d'Honneur of France. He also received the Order of Ontario and the title of Justice of the Peace (HKSAR) from the Hong Kong SAR Government. In 2012, he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. He is an inductee into the Etobicoke Hall of Fame.

Tsui became internationally acclaimed in 1989 when he and his team identified the defective gene, namely Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), that causes cystic fibrosis, which is a major breakthrough in human genetics. He has also made significant contributions to the study of the human genome, especially the characterization of chromosome 7, and, identification of additional disease genes.

From 1981 to 2002, Tsui continued his research and teaching in the Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto alternatively. Prior to his appointment as the Vice-Chancellor, he was Geneticist-in-Chief and Head of the Genetics and Genomic Biology Program of the Research Institute at the Hospital for Sick Children and co-founder (with Dr. Steve Scherer) of The Centre for Applied Genomics. He was also the holder of the H.E. Sellers Chair in Cystic Fibrosis and University Professor at the University of Toronto. He was the President of Human Genome Organisation (HUGO), the international organization of scientists involved in the Human Genome Project, from 2000 to 2002.

He studied Biology at the New Asia College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and was awarded a B.Sc. (3rd Class Honours) and a M.Phil. in 1972 and 1974, respectively. Upon the recommendation of his mentor at the CUHK, he continued his graduate education in the United States and received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1979. He became Postdoctoral Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellow in 1979 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, then joined the Department of Genetics of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto in 1981.

Lap-Chee Tsui, GBM, OC, OOnt, JP, FRS, FRSC (Chinese: 徐立之 ; pinyin: Xú Lìzhī ; Jyutping: ceoi laap zi ; born 21 December 1950) is a Chinese-born Canadian geneticist and served as the 14th Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Hong Kong.