School of Biomedical Science The Chinese University of Hong Kong eNewsletter

Jointly organized by the Reproduction, Development and Endocrinology Program of the School of Biomedical Sciences, the CUHK-BGI Innovation Institute of Trans-omics (the Innovation Institute), the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology (O&G) of the CUHK, and the Hong Kong Society of Medical Genetics, the symposium on "Recent Advances in Clinical Genetics Using High Throughput Genomic Technologies" was successfully held on 5 December 2011.

The symposium was well received by more than 120 participants, in which many of them were academics from basic science and clinical departments of the University, practitioners from public hospitals and investigators from industry. During the event, Prof. Tony K.H. Chung, Associate Dean (General Affairs) of Faculty of Medicine and Chair of the O&G Department, and Prof. Chan Wai-Yee, Director of the School of Biomedical Sciences and the Innovation Institute, gave welcoming and closing remarks respectively. Our Prof. Stephen K.W. Tsui also chaired the second session of the symposium in his capacity of the Associate Director (Education) of the Innovation Institute. The talks given in the symposium included:

Dr. Cynthia Casson Morton, Harvard Medical School
(Topic: "Developmental Genome Anatomy Project: Cytogenetic Approach to Gene Discovery in the Next-Gen Sequencing Era")

Dr. Zhang Xue, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College
(Topic: "Genomic Basis of X-linked Hypertrichosis Syndrome")

Dr. Stephen Lam, Department of Health
(Topic: "An Overview of Genetic and Genomic Services in Hong Kong")

Dr. Charles Lee, Harvard Medical School
(Topic: "Capturing Copy Number Variants (CNVs) from Whole-Genome Next Generation DNA Sequencing: Perspectives from the 1000 Genomes Project")

Dr. Richard Choy, Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology
(Topic: "Identifying Hearing Loss Gene Mutations by Sequence Capture Analysis")

The five talks presented advances in different fields of genomic and genetic medicine. Participants found the presentations offered an instructive body of knowledge for continuous development in clinical genetics and genomics. As reflected in the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the participants, the symposium also served as an effective platform for promoting collaboration by capitalizing further on the current strengths of genomic and genetic research.