Centuries of Heritage, A Global Stage: Professor Dennis Lo Yuk-ming’s double honours in Hong Kong and Cambridge
16 July 2026
The summer of 2026 has marked an extraordinary chapter of successive honours for Professor Dennis Lo Yuk-ming, Vice-Chancellor and President of CUHK. Within a single week, Professor Lo’s pioneering contributions to global medicine and higher education have been celebrated on both local and international stages, underscoring the world-class calibre of CUHK’s leadership. On 1 July, the Hong Kong SAR Government awarded Professor Lo the Gold Bauhinia Star (GBS) in recognition of his accomplishments in medical research, public health, higher education and technological innovation in Hong Kong. The official citation commended him for “benefiting global public health with exemplary contributions”.
In response to the honour, Professor Lo remarked, “This honour belongs not only to me personally, but also to the team with whom I have worked for nearly 30 years. It demonstrates the HKSAR Government’s strong commitment to technological innovation and university education.”
This prestigious local award closely followed an international milestone. Only a week earlier, on 24 June, Professor Lo became the first Hong Kong scientist to receive an Honorary Doctorate in Medical Sciences from the University of Cambridge, in recognition of his contributions to the development of non-invasive prenatal testing.
These successive major honours not only underscore Professor Lo’s distinguished achievements in medical research, but also showcase the exceptional strength of Hong Kong’s research talent on the global stage.
The Congregation brought together university faculty members, students, alumni, and prominent figures from political and diplomatic circles to witness Professor Lo receiving the highest accolade from his alma mater. On receiving this honour, he expressed his gratitude to his research team and to the many pregnant women and cancer patients who had participated in his clinical research. He added, “I wish this recognition could be an inspiration to others to follow their passions, and to appreciate that scientific breakthroughs are forged through perseverance, continuous learning, and the courage to navigate setbacks along the way.”
Guided by a healer’s calling: redefining prenatal testing
Professor Lo’s lifelong connection with Cambridge began with a single photograph. At the age of 16, he saw a biology textbook photograph of James Watson and Francis Crick, two scientists who first identified the DNA double-helix structure, taken in front of King’s College Chapel in Cambridge. From that moment, Professor Lo set his sights on starting his journey to become a doctor at Cambridge, aspiring to pursue “a path different from that of a conventional physician”.
During his subsequent obstetrics and gynaecology training, Professor Lo witnessed the birth of new lives and became keenly aware of the mixture of anxiety and anticipation felt by expectant parents. In particular, while approximately one in every 700 children is born with chromosomal abnormalities like trisomy 21, accurate diagnosis at the time relied heavily on the extraction of amniotic fluid. This invasive procedure could harm the fetus and might even lead to miscarriage. Faced with such a difficult dilemma, many mothers hesitated to undergo testing.
Determined to find a non-invasive alternative, Professor Lo embarked on research to search for fetal cells that might have entered into the maternal circulation. After eight years of painstaking effort with little success, the breakthrough came in 1997, when Professor Lo returned to Hong Kong to join CUHK. Inspired by the simple act of cooking instant noodles, he decided to heat pregnant women’s plasma and successfully detected fetal chromosomal sequences within it. This breakthrough later evolved into non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), which can identify more than 99% of trisomy 21 cases. After more than a decade of clinical validation, the technology was launched clinically in 2011, revolutionising prenatal testing worldwide. NIPT is now widely adopted in more than 100 countries, benefiting over 100 million pregnant women globally and earning Professor Lo the title “Father of NIPT”.
Pushing forward the innovation envelope: improving cancer diagnostics
Despite these extraordinary achievements, Professor Lo did not pause in his pursuit of innovation. He continued to devote himself to research, extending the technology into cancer diagnosis. He further explored the potential of blood tests to detect the genomic fragments shed by cancer cells into the bloodstream, replacing invasive tissue biopsies and opening the door for asymptomatic, early-stage cancer detection, when cure rates are at their highest. The technology was first applied in the field of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. In the past, many patients were diagnosed only at a later stage, when symptoms had become apparent. Through screening with this new technology, 70% to 75% of stage I or II cases can now be detected — a dramatic leap from the previous early-diagnosis rate of only about 20%. Professor Lo further developed the technology into the first multi-cancer early detection (MCED) test, further broadening its impact, and was honoured as one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2022.
As a global pioneer in the field of liquid biopsy, Professor Lo has received numerous accolades. As early as 2016, he was named the Thomson Reuters Citation Laureate in Chemistry. In 2021, he received the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, known as the Oscars of Science. In 2022, he received the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, widely known as the top biomedical research prize in the United States. This year, he was further presented with The American Association for Cancer Research’s AACR-Irving Weinstein Foundation Distinguished Lectureship, making him the first Hong Kong scientist and the second Chinese scholar to receive this prestigious honour.
From aspiring to greatness to inspiring future generations
Beyond his devoted contributions to academic research, Professor Lo is also generous in spirit and philanthropic in action, offering substantial support to future scientific endeavours. Professor Lo’s deep ties to Cambridge came full circle during his recent visit to the United Kingdom. In addition to his honorary doctorate, he was named a Benefactor Bye-Fellow by Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in gratitude for his philanthropic donation supporting postdoctoral research initiatives. His name will be permanently inscribed in the College’s historic Old Library, founded in 1584, leaving an enduring model for generations to come.
Through boundless passion and unremitting dedication, Professor Lo has become an exceptional scientist in his own right, standing alongside many of the world’s most influential intellectual giants. His tireless devotion to institutional leadership and scientific discovery perfectly embodies CUHK’s steadfast commitment to the global pursuit of excellence. Despite his extraordinary scientific achievements, Professor Lo remains humble and reflective. He remarked that, as a scientist, his focus has always been on making his research “original, rigorous, and of lasting value”, with the aspiration of benefiting human society through scientific advancement.
By Ella Cheung
Photos courtesy of the University of Cambridge and the interviewee
