Professor Vijaykrishna Dhanasekaran is a faculty member at the School of Public Health (SPH) at HKU, where he leads the Pathogen Evolution Lab. Prior to joining SPH in 2020, he held faculty positions at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore from 2010 and Monash University in Australia, as well as postdoctoral fellowship at HKU’s Department of Microbiology. Professor Dhanasekaran earned his BSc, MSc, and MPhil from the University of Madras (1994-2000), and his PhD in microbial ecology and evolution from the University of Hong Kong (2002-2005).

His research focuses on the ecology, evolution and epidemiology of rapidly evolving viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and RSV. Combining epidemiological studies across the Eurasian and Pacific regions with the integration of genomic, clinical and immunological data, his lab investigates the genetic and ecological factors driving the emergence and distribution of infectious diseases. Professor Dhanasekaran has authored over 100 research articles with more than 15,000 citations (h-index 56). His recent work on the resurgence of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 viruses earned the HKU Research Output Prize 2023-2024. He has also served on the editorial boards of Journal of Virology, Communication Medicine, PLoS Global Public Health.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7Hy0s6IAAAAJ

Lab websites: http://vjlab.io/, https://www.hkupasteur.hku.hk/the-vijay-dhanasekaran-lab

1. Xie R*, Adam DC, Hu S, Cowling BJ, Gascuel O, Zhukova A*, Dhanasekaran V* (2024) Integrating Contact Tracing Data to Enhance Outbreak Phylodynamic Inference: A Deep Learning Approach. Mol Biol Evol 41(11):msae232. [link]
2. Xie R, Edwards KE, Wille M, Xiaoman W, Elshesheney R, Ducatez M, Wong SS, Zanin M, LLM Poon, Kayali G, Webby R.J., Dhanasekaran V* (2022) The episodic resurgence of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5. Nature 622(7984):810-817. [link]
3. Xie R, Edwards KM, Adam DC, Leung KSM, Tsang TK, Gurung S, Xiong W, Wei X, Ng DYM, Liu GYZ, Krishnan P, Chang LDJ, Cheng SMS, Gu H, Siu GKH, Wu JT, Leung GM, Peiris M, Cowling BJ, Poon LLM & Dhanasekaran V* (2023). Resurgence of Omicron BA.2 in SARS-CoV-2 infection-naive Hong Kong. Nat. Commun. 14(1):2422. [link]
4. Dhanasekaran V*, Sullivan S, Edwards KM, Xie R, Khvorov A, Valkenburg SA, Cowling BJ, Barr IG. Human seasonal influenza under COVID-19 and the potential consequences of influenza lineage elimination. Nat. Commun. 2022 Mar 31;13(1):1721. [link]
5. Eden JS, Sikazwe C, Xie R, Deng YM, Sullivan SG, Michie A, Levy A, Cutmore E, Blyth CC, Britton PN, Crawford N, Dong X, Dwyer DE, Edwards KM, Horsburgh BA, Foley D, Kennedy K, Minney-Smith C, Speers D, Tulloch RL, Holmes EC, Dhanasekaran V*, Smith DW*, Kok J*, Barr IG*; Australian RSV study group. Off-season RSV epidemics in Australia after easing of COVID-19 restrictions. Nat. Commun. 2022 May 24;13(1):2884. [link]
6. Gu H, Xie R, Adam DC, Tsui JL, Chu DK, Chang LDJ, Cheuk SSY, Gurung S, Krishnan P, Ng DYM, Liu GYZ, Wan CKC, Cheng SSM, Edwards KM, Leung KSM, Wu JT, Tsang DNC, Leung GM, Cowling BJ, Peiris M, Lam TTY, Dhanasekaran V*, Poon LLM*. Genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 under an elimination strategy in Hong Kong. Nat. Commun. 2022 Feb 8;13(1):736. [link]
7. Dhanasekaran V*, Holmes EC, Joseph U, Fourment M, Su YC, Halpin R, Lee RT, Deng YM, Gunalan V, Lin X, Stockwell TB, Fedorova NB, Zhou B, Spirason N, Kühnert D, Bošková V, Stadler T, Costa AM, Dwyer DE, Huang QS, Jennings LC, Rawlinson W, Sullivan SG, Hurt AC, Maurer-Stroh S, Wentworth DE, Smith GJ, Barr IG. The contrasting phylodynamics of human influenza B viruses. Elife. 2015 Jan 16;4:e05055. [link]
8. Dhanasekaran V, Smith GJ, Pybus OG, Zhu H, Bhatt S, Poon LL, Riley S, Bahl J, Ma SK, Cheung CL, Perera RA, Chen H, Shortridge KF, Webby RJ, Webster RG, Guan Y, Peiris JS. Long-term evolution and transmission dynamics of swine influenza A virus. Nature. 2011 May 26;473(7348):519-22. [link]
9. Dhanasekaran V, Poon LLM, Zhu HC, Ma SK, Li OT, Cheung CL, Smith GJ, Peiris JS, Guan Y. Reassortment of pandemic H1N1/2009 influenza A virus in swine. Science. 2010 Jun 18;328(5985):1529. [link]
10. Smith GJ*, Dhanasekaran V*, Bahl J*, Lycett SJ*, Worobey M*, Pybus OG*, Ma SK, Cheung CL, Raghwani J, Bhatt S, Peiris JS, Guan Y, Rambaut A*. Origins and evolutionary genomics of the 2009 swine-origin H1N1 influenza A epidemic. Nature. 2009 Jun 25;459(7250):1122-5. [link]