Department of Chemical Pathology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Professor Tang graduated with a MBChB degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1991. He was admitted to Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) in 1997. Prof. Tang joined CUHK in 1996. He was then conferred the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 2002. He was awarded a scholarship by the Sir Robert Black Trust Fund for a sabbatical leave to the Strangeways Research Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, UK.

Prof. Tang started the first metabolic clinic in Hong Kong to take care of patients with various inborn errors of metabolism, which are rare genetic diseases in children, more than 20 years ago. His research team has contributed to the discovery of the disease gene causing Primary Carnitine Deficiency (named by Prof. Tang as 卡尼丁缺乏症 in Chinese which has become the standard Chinese medical term now). His discovery has facilitated the molecular diagnosis of this disease and more than 1,000 patients of this rare disease have been diagnosed and treated all over Mainland China and Asia. The molecular protein structure is shown at the end of the webpage.

Professor Tang is also the principal investigator of the Laboratory for Genetics of Disease Susceptibility in the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences. The team investigates the genetic basis of polygenic diseases, also known as complex traits. Long term collaborations with international researchers have led to many new insights in various complex traits, such as genetics basis in Scoliosis which have inspired new treatment modalities. Recently, he has developed new analysis algorithms in bioinformatics and genetic statistics using cloud computing which enable determination of gene expression of a single cellular population from bulk data of cell mixtures. This invention is instrumental in the development of future blood biomarker tests and has been awarded the Gold Medal in the 2021 Geneva Invention Expo and a Silver Award in a patent portfolio competition in the Greater Bay Area.

Prof. Tang has held various professional and academic positions, for example, serving on the Advisory Committee of Genetic Pathology in the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA), being an editor of RCPA Catalogue of Genetic Tests and Laboratories and Pathology Manual and an examiner in the Fellowship examination for RCPA. Prof. Tang is a member of the Grant Review Board of Health and Medical Research Fund of the Hong Kong SAR Government. He is regularly invited to review grant proposals for Research Grant Council (HK) and various grant bodies in Mainland China, United Kingdom, Singapore, South Africa, Poland etc. He supervised more than 20 postgraduate students at both master and doctorial levels. Prof. Tang has been on the examination boards of graduate schools in many universities to examine PhD students, for example, the University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Peking University, University of Sydney etc. He reviewed more than 50 journal manuscripts for various renowned Journals in the past 3 years.

Research interests:

1.	Genetic Susceptibility of common diseases (also known as complex traits), e.g. Scoliosis, Diabetes, etc. Prof. Tang is among the top 10 cited authors in the field of Complex traits according to Google Scholar.
2.	New algorithms in Bioinformatics and genetic statistics: single cell population gene expression and genetic interaction. A log-linear model statistical algorithm (BOOST) for gene-gene interaction detection has been incorporated into commonly used GWAS software (e.g. PLINK).
3.	Inborn errors of metabolism: Carnitine deficiency and Wilson's disease.

Patents:
Determination of gene expression levels of a cell type, US9589099B2
Method for determining the copy number of a tandem repeat sequence, US11639521B2

Links to publications:

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3607-5819

Scopus

Web of Science author search

Book Editor:

Chemical Diagnostics: From Bench to Bedside (in the series of Topics in Current Chemistry, Vol. 336). L.S. Tang, Nelson; Poon, Terence (Eds.) Publisher: Springer; 2014. ISBN-10: 364239941X (Top 25% most downloaded eBooks in the relevant Springer eBook Collection)

12 selected publication among > 300 publications

Tang N, Zheng YT, Zhao H, Chan WY, Yao YG (2023). Editorial: A brief review of the long-term partnership between Kunming Institute of Zoology (KIZ) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in bioresources and molecular research. Zoological Research, 44: 556 - 558.

Xiao FH, Wang HT, Chen XQ, et al (2023). Hypermethylation in H3K9me3 regions characterizes the centenarian methylomes in healthy aging. Natl Sci Rev. 2023 Mar 9;10(6):nwad067.

Tang, N. L., Hui, J., Huang, D., Tang, M. F., Wang, X., Wu, J., Chan, I. H. S., Leung, T. F. (2020). Reference intervals of spot urine copper excretion in preschool children and potential application in pre-symptomatic screening of Wilson disease. Pathology, 52(4):439-446. Pre-print available here

Styrkarsdottir, U., Stefansson, O. A., Gunnarsdottir, K., et al. (2019). GWAS of bone size yields twelve loci that also affect height, BMD, osteoarthritis or fractures. Nature Communications, 10(1), 2054. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09860-0

Styrkarsdottir, U., Helgason, H., Sigurdsson, A., et al. (2017). Whole-genome sequencing identifies rare genotypes in COMP and CHADL associated with high risk of hip osteoarthritis. Nature Genetics, 49(5), 801–805. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.3816

Styrkarsdottir, U., Thorleifsson, G., Gudjonsson, S. A., et al. (2016). Sequence variants in the PTCH1 gene associate with spine bone mineral density and osteoporotic fractures. Nature Communications, 7, 10129. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10129

Zhu, Z., Tang, N. L.-S., Xu, L., et al. (2015). Genome-wide association study identifies new susceptibility loci for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis in Chinese girls. Nature Communications, 6, 8355. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9355

Estrada, K., Styrkarsdottir, U., Evangelou, E., et al. (2012). Genome-wide meta-analysis identifies 56 bone mineral density loci and reveals 14 loci associated with risk of fracture. Nature Genetics, 44(5), 491–501. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2249

Wan, X., Yang, C., Yang, Q., Xue, H., Fan, X., Tang, N. L. S., & Yu, W. (2010). BOOST: A fast approach to detecting gene-gene interactions in genome-wide case-control studies. American Journal of Human Genetics, 87(3), 325–340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2010.07.021

Khor, C. C., Vannberg, F. O., Chapman, S. J., et al. (2010). CISH and susceptibility to infectious diseases. The New England Journal of Medicine, 362(22), 2092–2101. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa0905606

Woo, J., Tang, N., Suen, E., Leung, J., & Wong, M. (2009). Green space, psychological restoration, and telomere length. Lancet (London, England), 373(9660), 299–300. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60094-5

Tang, N. L.-S., Chan, P. K.-S., Hui, D. S.-C., To, K.-F., Zhang, W., Chan, F. K. L., Sung, J. J.-Y., & Lo, Y. M. D. (2007). Lack of support for an association between CLEC4M homozygosity and protection against SARS coronavirus infection. Nature Genetics, 39(6), 691–692. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng0607-691

Detailed CV with full publication list of Prof Tang updated in October 2023

(3D protein structure of the carnitine transporter OCTN2, prepared by ML Ou)