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| Biography |
Professor Allen Chan received his undergraduate medical training from the University of Hong Kong and started his PhD training in our department in 2001 under the supervision of Professor Dennis Lo. He stayed with the department and is currently Chair Professor of Chemical Pathology and the Chief of Service for the clinical service of the department. |
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His main research interest is developing new diagnostic approaches based on circulating DNA analysis. The applications of his inventions cover noninvasive prenatal testing, cancer diagnostics, organ transplant and autoimmune diseases monitoring. To date, he has published 169 peer-reviewed articles with a total citation of over 11,000 and an h-index of 56. He is a co-inventor of over 1,500 patent applications with over 900 granted globally covering 73 inventions on molecular diagnostics. Among his inventions, the noninvasive prenatal test for Down syndrome is the most notable. This test has been adopted in over 70 countries with millions of test performed each year. |
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Professor Chan also led the first large-scale prospective study to demonstrate the feasibility of using liquid biopsy to screen for early asymptomatic cancers. This work was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2017 and was chosen as one of the ten notable articles for that year. |
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Allen is also an entrepreneur and he co-founded a number of biotechnology companies with Professors Dennis Lo and Rossa Chiu. One of his companies, Cirina, after merging with Grail, was acquired by Illumina, at a cost of over USD 8 billion. In addition to research, Allen is also passionate about teaching and received a total of four Teacher of the Year awards from the Faculty of Medicine, CUHK. |
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Ten selected publications over the last 5 years: |
Chan KCA, Woo JKS, King A, Zee BCY, Lam WKJ, Chan SL, Chu SWI, Mak C, Tse IOL, Leung SYM, Chan G, Hui EP, Ma BBY, Chiu RWK, Leung SF, van Hasselt AC, Chan ATC, Lo YMD. Analysis of Plasma Epstein-Barr Virus DNA to Screen for Nasopharyngeal Cancer. N Engl J Med. 2017;377(6):513-522. |
Kim KY, Le QT, Yom SS, Pinsky BA, Bratman SV, Ng RH, El Mubarak HS, Chan KCA, Sander M, Conley BA. Current State of PCR-Based Epstein-Barr Virus DNA Testing for Nasopharyngeal Cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2017;109(4). |
Chan KCA, Jiang P, Sun K, Cheng YK, Tong YK, Cheng SH, Wong AI, Hudecova I, Leung TY, Chiu RW, Lo YM. Second generation noninvasive fetal genome analysis reveals de novo mutations, single-base parental inheritance, and preferred DNA ends. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2016;113(50):E8159-E8168. |
Park K, Yu CJ, Kim SW, Lin MC, Sriuranpong V, Tsai CM, Lee JS, Kang JH, Chan KCA, Perez-Moreno P, Button P, Ahn MJ, Mok T. First-Line Erlotinib Therapy Until and Beyond Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors Progression in Asian Patients With Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutation-Positive Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer: The ASPIRATION Study. JAMA Oncol. 2016;2(3):305-12. |
Sun K*, Jiang P*, Chan KCA*, Wong J, Cheng YK, Liang RH, Chan WK, Ma ES, Chan SL, Cheng SH, Chan RW, Tong YK, Ng SS, Wong RS, Hui DS, Leung TN, Leung TY, Lai PB, Chiu RW, Lo YM. Plasma DNA tissue mapping by genome-wide methylation sequencing for noninvasive prenatal, cancer, and transplantation assessments. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2015;112(40):E5503-12. (*co-first authors) |
Jiang P*, Chan CW*, Chan KCA*, Cheng SH, Wong J, Wong VW, Wong GL, Chan SL, Mok TS, Chan HL, Lai PB, Chiu RW, Lo YM. Lengthening and shortening of plasma DNA in hepatocellular carcinoma patients. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2015;112(11):E1317-25. (*co-first authors) |
Yu SC*, Chan KCA*, Zheng YW*, Jiang P, Liao GJ, Sun H, Akolekar R, Leung TY, Go AT, van Vugt JM, Minekawa R, Oudejans CB, Nicolaides KH, Chiu RW, Lo YM. Size-based molecular diagnostics using plasma DNA for noninvasive prenatal testing. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2014;111(23):8583-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1406103111. (*co-first authors) |
Chan KCA, Jiang P, Chan CW, Sun K, Wong J, Hui EP, Chan SL, Chan WC, Hui DS, Ng SS, Chan HL, Wong CS, Ma BB, Chan AT, Lai PB, Sun H, Chiu RW, Lo YM. Noninvasive detection of cancer-associated genome-wide hypomethylation and copy number aberrations by plasma DNA bisulfite sequencing. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2013;110(47):18761-8. |
Le QT, Zhang Q, Cao H, Cheng AJ, Pinsky BA, Hong RL, Chang JT, Wang CW, Tsao KC, Lo YD, Lee N, Ang KK, Chan AT, Chan KCA. An international collaboration to harmonize the quantitative plasma Epstein-Barr virus DNA assay for future biomarker-guided trials in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Clin Cancer Res. 2013;19(8):2208-15. |
Chan KCA, Jiang P, Zheng YW, Liao GJ, Sun H, Wong J, Siu SS, Chan WC, Chan SL, Chan AT, Lai PB, Chiu RW, Lo YM. Cancer genome scanning in plasma: detection of tumor-associated copy number aberrations, single- nucleotide variants, and tumoral heterogeneity by massively parallel sequencing. Clin Chem. 2013;59(1):211-24. |
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