BOARD OF ADVISORS

Dennis Lo

Professor Dennis Lo is the Director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences, the Li Ka Shing Professor of Medicine and Professor of Chemical Pathology of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He is also the Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Medicine of CUHK. Professor Lo received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Cambridge and Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the University of Oxford.

His research interests focus on the biology and diagnostic applications of cell-free nucleic acids in plasma. In particular, he discovered the presence of cell-free fetal DNA in maternal plasma in 1997 and has since then been pioneering non-invasive prenatal diagnosis using this technology. He has also made many innovations in using circulating nucleic acids for cancer detection, including the screening of early stage asymptomatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).

In recognition of his work, Professor Lo has been elected as Fellow of the Royal Society, Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and Founding Member of the Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong. Professor Lo has won numerous awards, including the 2012 Ernesto Illy Trieste Science Prize from TWAS, the 2014 King Faisal International Prize in Medicine, the 2015 Coulter Lectureship Award, which is the highest honour bestowed by the American Association of Clinical Chemistry, the first-ever Future Science Prize-Life Science Prize in 2016, and the Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award in 2019.