Department of Chemical Pathology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Professor Tang graduated MB ChB from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1991. He was admitted to Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (FRCPA) in 1997 after training in both histopathology and chemical pathology in the Departments of Anatomical & Cellular Pathology and Chemical Pathology at the Prince of Wales Hospital. Professor Tang joined the University in 1996. He was then conferred the degree of Doctor of Medicine. In 2003/04, he was awarded a scholarship from the Sir Robert Black Trust Fund for a study leave at the Strangeways Research Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, UK. He is currently serving in the Advisory Committee of Genetic Pathology in the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia. He has been examiner for RCPA and also serves as editor of RCPA Catalogue of Genetic Tests and Laboratories.

Professor Tang started the first metabolic clinic in Hong Kong to take care of patients with various inborn errors of metabolism (IEM, or inherited metabolic diseases) more than 20 years ago. His research team contributed to the discovery of the disease gene causing Primary Carnitine Deficiency (named by him as 卡尼丁缺乏症, which has now become a commonly used Chinese medical term). His discovery facilitated the molecular diagnosis of this disease and today more than 1,000 patients of this rare disease are diagnosed and treated all over China.

Professor Tang is also the principal investigator of the Laboratory for Genetics of Disease Susceptibility in the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences. We investigate the genetic basis of polygenic disease also called complex traits, including many common diseases like diabetes and hypertension. Our long term collaboration with international researchers led to many new insights in various polygenic complex traits, including genetics basis in Scoliosis which inspire new treatment modality. Recently, we develops new analysis algorithms in bioinformatics and genetic statistics which enable determination of gene expression of a single cellular population from bulk data of cell mixtures. This will be useful in development of future blood biomarker tests.

Research interests:

1.	Genetic Susceptibility of common diseases (also known as complex traits), e.g. Scoliosis, Diabetes, etc.
2.	New algorithms in Bioinformatics and genetic statistics: single cell population gene expression and genetic interaction
3.	Inborn errors of metabolism: Carnitine deficiency and Wilson's disease

Patent:

Determination of gene expression levels of a cell type, US9589099B2

Links to publications:

鄧亮生@全球學者庫

Publons.com/researcher/2047982/nelson-l-tang

Google Scholar

ResearchGate

Pubmed

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3607-5819

Scopus

Book Editor:

Chemical Diagnostics: From Bench to Bedside (in the series of Topics in Current Chemistry, Vol. 336). L.S. Tang, Nelson; Poon, Terence (Eds.) Publisher: Springer; 2014. ISBN-10: 364239941X (Top 25% most downloaded eBooks in the relevant Springer eBook Collection)

10 selected publication among > 300 publications

Tang, N. L. S., & Hui, J. (2020). 20 Years After Discovery of the Causative Gene of Primary Carnitine Deficiency, How Much More Have We Known About the Disease? HK J Paediatr (new series), 25:23-29. http://www.hkjpaed.org/pdf/2020;25;23-29.pdf

Styrkarsdottir, U., Stefansson, O. A., Gunnarsdottir, K., et al. (2019). GWAS of bone size yields twelve loci that also affect height, BMD, osteoarthritis or fractures. Nature Communications, 10(1), 2054. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09860-0

Styrkarsdottir, U., Helgason, H., Sigurdsson, A., et al. (2017). Whole-genome sequencing identifies rare genotypes in COMP and CHADL associated with high risk of hip osteoarthritis. Nature Genetics, 49(5), 801–805. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.3816

Styrkarsdottir, U., Thorleifsson, G., Gudjonsson, S. A., et al. (2016). Sequence variants in the PTCH1 gene associate with spine bone mineral density and osteoporotic fractures. Nature Communications, 7, 10129. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10129

Zhu, Z., Tang, N. L.-S., Xu, L., et al. (2015). Genome-wide association study identifies new susceptibility loci for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis in Chinese girls. Nature Communications, 6, 8355. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9355

Estrada, K., Styrkarsdottir, U., Evangelou, E., et al. (2012). Genome-wide meta-analysis identifies 56 bone mineral density loci and reveals 14 loci associated with risk of fracture. Nature Genetics, 44(5), 491–501. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2249

Wan, X., Yang, C., Yang, Q., Xue, H., Fan, X., Tang, N. L. S., & Yu, W. (2010). BOOST: A fast approach to detecting gene-gene interactions in genome-wide case-control studies. American Journal of Human Genetics, 87(3), 325–340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2010.07.021

Khor, C. C., Vannberg, F. O., Chapman, S. J., et al. (2010). CISH and susceptibility to infectious diseases. The New England Journal of Medicine, 362(22), 2092–2101. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa0905606

Woo, J., Tang, N., Suen, E., Leung, J., & Wong, M. (2009). Green space, psychological restoration, and telomere length. Lancet (London, England), 373(9660), 299–300. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60094-5

Tang, N. L.-S., Chan, P. K.-S., Hui, D. S.-C., To, K.-F., Zhang, W., Chan, F. K. L., Sung, J. J.-Y., & Lo, Y. M. D. (2007). Lack of support for an association between CLEC4M homozygosity and protection against SARS coronavirus infection. Nature Genetics, 39(6), 691–692. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng0607-691