Francisco Lai is an Assistant Professor of Psychopharmacoepidemiology jointly appointed by the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy and the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, School of Clinical Medicine, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong (HKU). He earned his B.Sc. degree in economics and finance from HKUST Business School (QS 2024 Subject World Ranking = 34^th) in 2013, graduating with Dean’s Award in Social Science; and his Ph.D. degree from The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s (CUHK) Medical School (QS 2024 Subject World Ranking = 28^th) in 2019 on the Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fellowship (for Postgraduate Students) 2018/19 in recognition of the societal significance of his Ph.D. research. He was awarded the RGC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2020/21, Inaugural Class) in support of his postdoctoral training at CUHK before joining HKU in March 2021 as a Research Assistant Professor and being promoted to Assistant Professor (tenure-track) in September 2023.

Francisco is a pharmacoepidemiologist focusing on real-world evidence (RWE) for psychotropic drugs, e.g., antipsychotics, antidepressants, and sedative-hypnotics, long-term safety of medications, and psychosomatic multimorbidity, i.e., co-existence of mental and physical disorders. Since joining HKU, he has initiated and overseen numerous research studies as the senior corresponding author which led to publications in high-impact journals, such as PLOS Medicine (impact factor = 10.5) and Sleep Medicine Reviews (impact factor = 11.2). In a first-author capacity, he has also led research published in Annals of Internal Medicine (impact factor = 19.6), Journal of the American College of Cardiology (impact factor = 21.7), and Nature Communications (impact factor = 14.7). Francisco has published more than 130 scholarly journal articles, with an H-Index of 31 (Google Scholar, as of Nov 2024). His research has been shortlisted for the HKU Research Output Prize multiple times since 2022, and the societal impact of his works on vaccine safety and pharmacovigilance during public health emergencies has also been recognized by the HKU Knowledge Exchange Award in 2023. Francisco has served as a research grant reviewer for the Swiss National Science Foundation, a scientific referee for more than 30 scholarly journals, and currently serves as an editorial board member for Communications Medicine (Nature Publishing Group), Stress and Health, and Journal of Multimorbidity and Comorbidity.

So far, every alumnus/ alumna of Francisco’s lab has at least one first-author (excluding 2^nd-6^th co-first authorship) research/ review article published, under review, or to be submitted for publication, some of which in journals with an impact factor of 10 or above (please see them listed under Publications). The Epi-Multimorbidity Lab, headed by Francisco, is actively recruiting motivated postdoctoral fellows, PhD students or research assistants. Interested candidates should email fttlai@hku.hk their CV and samples of research works for an expedited review and consideration.