How did 2 Hong Kong innovative pioneers turn ideas into reality that can change the world?
- Dennis Lo ‘set a goal’ to find safer, non-invasive prenatal test, which is now used over 7 million times in more than 90 countries each year
- Soung Liew says ‘passion and perseverance’ have helped him develop technology that could transform speed and reliability of wireless communication
For many decades, trying to examine the genetic health of an unborn baby always came with a very real risk.
The most accurate and commonly used test involved inserting a needle into the mother’s uterus to obtain samples of the fluid protecting the fetus – a method that carried a small chance of causing a miscarriage.
However, thanks to one of Hong Kong’s medical pioneers, expectant parents around the world now benefit from a much safer way of checking on their baby’s development during the pregnancy.
Pioneers need to have faith in their ideas … to set their goal [for success]. When I solved the prenatal question, we had to try close to 10 different types of technology – and eventually only one or two of them worked
Dennis Lo, director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences and Li Ka Shing professor of medicine at Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), developed a non-invasive test that has eliminated the risk of injuring the fetus during the diagnosis.
In September, he was awarded the 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences – dubbed the “Oscars of science” – for his discovery of cell-free fetal DNA in maternal plasma, which laid the foundation for detecting abnormalities in maternal blood.
Lo’s prenatal testing technology, which has been widely available to doctors for more than a decade, is now used more than seven million times each year in over 90 countries, CUHK says.
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