In the first instalment of a series to mark the 10th anniversary of the Future Science Prize, Holly Chik and Shen Xinmei look at Professor Dennis Lo’s groundbreaking discovery of fetal DNA in maternal plasma, which earned him the inaugural award in the Life Sciences category in 2016.
The blood tests of the future can reveal a lot more about a person’s health, from neurodegenerative conditions to age-related diseases, said the Hong Kong clinical pathologist whose pioneering work in 1995 spared 10 million expecting mothers worldwide from the amniocentesis needle.
“In neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, I [can] use circular nucleic acids to diagnose those conditions”, said Professor Dennis Lo Yuk-ming during an interview last month with the Post. “Ageing changes the formatting of DNA, so [one] can use epigenetics as a clock of the DNA.”
The T21 test, available for between HK$4,500 (US$578) and HK$8,000 at various hospitals and clinics in Hong Kong, has been rolled out to women in 90 countries since 2011.
