- Chronic endocrine disorders
15 December 2000
CUHK Establishes State-of-the-Art Laboratory
for Genome Research
with 2 Million Donation from PROMAIL International
Club
PROMAIL International Club has donated 2 million dollars to the Department
of Anatomical and Cellular Pathology of the Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese
University of Hong Kong to establish a state-of-the-art "Microarray Genome
Research Laboratory". The Laboratory will greatly boost the strength
of the University in studies on genetic changes in various diseases.
Microarray technology is currently one of the newest and most advance
research method for the investigation in genetic related diseases, cancers
and drug sensitivity tests. The basic principle of the microarray system
is to analyze gene expression pattern in ten of thousand of genes. A gene
chip will be created by dotting thousand of normal cDNA clones onto a small
glass slide with a surface area of 4.5 x 2.5 cm by a microarrayer. RNA
obtained from the patients is then used to hybridize with the prepared
gene chip in a hybridization chamber. The hybridized chip is scanned
and recorded in a computer with specialized software to analyze the data.
This method speeds up the process of searching for problem genes related
to disease with over-, under- or no expressions. Results obtained from
the genome analysis may lead to changes in the treatment of disease or
even correcting gene defects in gene therapy. Most microarray gene
chips created in western countries are based on the more common diseases
among the Caucasian population. There is a lack of gene chips for the common
diseases among the Asian population such as liver and nasopharyngeal cancers.
The purpose of the Microarray Genome Research Laboratory is to develop
gene chips for common diseases among the Asian population and thus benefit
the Asian community.
In Hong Kong, cancer is the number one killer disease and liver cancer
is ranked as the second and fourth most common cause of death in male and
female respectively. This cancer is especially common in Hong Kong, Southern
China, Taiwan and South East Asia. Professor Liew Choong Tsek and his group
at the Department of Anatomical and Cellular Pathology have been working
on liver cancer for the past two decades. Since 1996 he has used
few hundred microsatellite markers and finished analyzing the loss of heterozygosity
in all twenty chromosomes in human liver cancer. He found high frequencies
of loss of heterozygosity of p16 and few other loci in liver cancer that
has not been reported before. With the establishment of the Microarray
Genome Research Laboratory, specific genetic changes and unique gene expression
patterns can be deciphered. More importantly, the information and results
obtained from this analysis will lead to specific test for early cancer
detection and open the way to gene therapy in the future.
This is the first time that PROMAIL International Club donates a Microarray
Genome Research Laboratory to a university. Long term cooperation
with the Chinese University is under discussion with plans to set up a
PROMAIL Foundation for medical research at the Department of Anatomical
and Cellular Pathology.
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