S.H. Ho College eNewsletter

Two fellows of S. H. Ho College were honoured with the State Natural Science Award for the research project on colorectal cancer (CRC). As one of the members in the research team, Prof. Francis KL Chan, Dean of Medicine and Prof. Simon SM Ng, Assistant Dean of Medicine (Learning Experience), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, have been investigating the epidemiology, screening, molecular pathogenesis and biomarkers of CRC for 15 years and have achieved remarkable results. The research team received the State Natural Science Award (SNSA) second-class award on 9 January.

Led by Prof. Joseph JY Sung, Vice-Chancellor and President of CUHK and Mok Hing Yiu Professor of Medicine, the research team also includes Prof. Jun Yu, Professor of the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics and Dr. William KK Wu, Assistant Professor of the Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care and the Institute of Digestive Diseases. The team has identified novel biomarkers for non-invasive diagnosis of CRC. In future, patients can undergo CRC screening by blood test or stool based test. The accuracy of such test is higher than faecal occult blood test. The patients will not need to receive an invasive colonoscopy screening and thus can avoid potential risks such as bleeding and bowel perforation.

Organised by the State Council, the SNSAs are one of five categories of awards under the State Science and Technology Awards (SSTAs). They aim to reward individuals and organisations for academic excellence in basic and applied research in natural science.