Cancer is one of the major life threatening diseases of human. Due to the aging population and the longer life expectancy, the overall morbidity of cancer continues to grow. Although the clinical, medical and hygiene standards have improved significantly in the recent decades, it fails to completely change the status quo of cancer being the major lethal disease.

Precision medicine is the science that requires the in-depth understanding of the pathogeny and pathology, as well as the individualized characteristic of the cancer patient. Macao is an excellent site for initiating the genetic study for a large population given its major population composition of Han with relatively simple genetic background and the long life expectancy of the Macao citizens with a 36% mortality rate due to cancer. Making use of the previous research output in the breast cancer research, the Ministry of Education Frontiers Science Center for Precision Oncology (FSCPO) extends the coverage to other cancers that are common in Macao, including colon cancer, lung cancer, and liver cancer, and focuses on the concerns such as prevention, occurrence, metastasis, drug resistance of cancers with an aim to improve the cancer diagnostics and therapeutics. FSCPO emphasizes the research on four directions: cancer occurrence and development, tumor microenvironment and immune regulation, cancer metastasis and drug resistance mechanisms, and high-efficiency drug development and individualized cancer treatment.

In order to establish a world-leading science platform in precision medicine, the research teams of FSCPO have already conducted a series of platform constructions with test runs in the earlier stage. These platforms include cancer and blood bank, -omics technology, high throughput big data analysis, high throughput drug screening development, drug sensitivity, nano-biomaterial and animal model. FSCPO aims to establish large cohort of population studies for improving the accuracy of the early cancer diagnosis and for preventing the inherited mutation-induced cancers.

The successful establishment of FSCPO assists in shaping the long term development plan, and leads the research and development in life sciences, medicine, and cancers in particular in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. FSCPO also targets at making outstanding contributions to and publishing ground-breaking outputs in original research. In addition, FSCPO strengthens the research and development of the critical technologies, develop innovative products, and promote scientific knowledge transformation, all of which provide cancer patients with high-end, customized and personalized precision medicine prevention, diagnosis and therapeutics.

Prof. Chuxia DENG