Hong Kong’s first large-scale genome sequencing project has recruited more than 52,000 participants in about four years of operation, exceeding its original target, with the body behind it hoping to expand the scheme further to help more patients discover the causes of their undiagnosed diseases.

The Hong Kong Genome Institute, a government-owned organisation that runs the Hong Kong Genome Project, said that more than three-quarters of participants had experienced positive treatment changes thanks to findings from the project.

“There were improvements in treatments, such as identifying which medications might be more suitable for patients,” Dr Brian Chung Hon-yin, the institute’s chief medical and scientific officer, said in an interview.

The project launched in 2021 and originally aimed to recruit 40,000 to 50,000 people from 20,000 families by this year for whole genome sequencing, a process which unveils a person’s complete DNA sequence.

But the scheme had already enrolled more than 52,000 people from over 37,000 families as of mid-October this year.

People eligible to join are those with undiagnosed diseases, hereditary cancer or other conditions that could be related to genomics, together with their family members.