Guan Yi was born in Jiangxi, China. He is currently the director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases of the University of Hong Kong, a professor in the Department of Microbiology of the University of Hong Kong, and one of the international authorities on avian influenza virus. It was first proposed that civet cats were one of the scientists who spread SARS coronavirus, and were selected as one of the 18 rescue heroes by Time magazine.