Renowned scholar of molecular biology and “father of non-invasive prenatal testing” Dennis Lo Yuk-ming is slated to give an English-language talk entitled “Pushing Forward the Frontiers of Prenatal and Cancer Liquid Biopsies” at the University of Macau’s (UM) Doctor honoris causa Lecture tomorrow, the public university said in a statement on Thursday.
The statement noted that Prof. Lo will talk about “how to unveil the body’s secrets with plasma and discuss the latest developments, current challenges, and future directions in prenatal testing and cancer screening using cell-free DNA liquid biopsies”.
Prof. Lo, the statement said, is currently the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Faculty of Medicine’s Associate Dean (research), director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences, a Li Ka Shing Professor of Medicine, and a chair professor of chemical pathology at CUHK.
In 1997, the statement pointed out, Prof. Lo discovered the high concentration of foetal DNA in maternal plasma, leading him to develop a new technique which “can eliminate the high risk associated with amniocentesis and provide safe and effective prenatal testing for the accurate analysis and measurement of foetal DNA in maternal plasma”.
The non-invasive method has been adopted by laboratories in over 90 countries as routine testing for pregnant women, the statement noted.
The statement added that by analysing traces of foetal DNA in maternal plasma with the use of massive parallel sequencing and bioinformatics technologies, Prof. Lo and his research team “successfully decoded a foetal genome map for the early detection of multiple genetic diseases”. The statement added that the technique can “eliminate the risk associated with invasive biopsies and was then further applied to cancer screening and organ transplant rejection monitoring”.
Prof. Lo’s research has earned him a raft of international honours, according to the statement. Registration for the lecture can be made on https://umac.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6gSvyzSAuWlhoJ8 while enquiries can be made by calling 8822 4892 or emailing um_fhs@um.edu.mo
This poster provided by the University of Macau (UM) on Thursday promotes Prof. Dennis Lo Yuk Ming’s lecture slated tomorrow.
