Breakthrough genome database launched for public healthcare policies

Macau has developed its first genome database, which will be used to identify the underlying risks of genetic diseases in the local population, an innovative move that researchers believe would be informative and beneficial to the rest of the world.
The medical breakthrough in the region, led by scholars at the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) and from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, was believed to serve as a beneficial reference to healthcare authorities in formulating policies to prolong locals’ lifespans.
With the help of the data collated and stored in the system, authorities would be able to pinpoint the particular varieties of diseases to which people of this region are genetically prone, thereby devising corresponding approaches in order to reduce the occurrence of those illnesses among them.
“This is something not done in other regions across the globe. It’s conducive to developing medical planning, hospitals and specialist physicians [training] in the future,” said Dr Manson Fok, Dean of Faculty of Health Sciences at MUST, after a media conference at which the results of a year of hard work were formally presented.
Dr Gregory Cheng, hematology and oncology consultant at the university’s hospital, reassured the public that the data compiled would not necessarily translate into a message suggesting that locals were doomed to specific sicknesses.
“If you have a high genetic risk, for example, it does not mean you’re guaranteed to get the disease, so don’t scare yourself to death,” he explained in English.
The medical expert stressed that the objective of this analysis, which is currently in its preliminary stage and involves over 1,000 samples extracted from local Chinese youth, was to “offset the inherent shortcomings [associated] with acquired or environmental factors.”
Drawing on similar research assignments such as the International Hapmap Project and the Thousand Genome Project targeting European, American and mainland Chinese populations, the test will continue in other phases with the aim of gleaning more data from a dataset comprising various ages, genders and ethnicities, moving towards a more comprehensive and representative database.
The experts estimated that it would take at least two years to reach their expected volume of at least 20,000 samples in the following stage. This would still occur in conjunction with the university in the neighboring special administrative region.
The initial findings of the research concluded that Chinese locals are more likely to develop lung, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers with lower risks of Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases, out of a total of 16 illnesses tested in comparison to people from northern China, Europe and America.
According to the figures also provided by the scholars, the observed incidence rate in 2012 described a similar trend of diseases among locals. Staff reporter