- Scholarship in 2023 at University of Oxford
About Danson Loi’s work
Danson Loi works in the fields of cancer genomics and computational biology. His current research revolves around developing novel long-read single-cell genomic technologies and computational pipelines to answer biological questions. In particular, he’s interested in how tumour heterogeneity contributes to drug resistance in cancer.
Danson’s research group at Oxford is the first in the world to apply standalone long-read sequencing technology to interrogate single cells using a new method called scCOLOR-seq. This is significant because biological discoveries have been limited by the inability to discern different variants of RNA molecules as well as certain mutation products such as fusion transcripts using short-read sequencing. Danson is advancing this paradigm shift in technology by multiplexing it with other single-cell omics that can link phenotypic changes to non-genetic determinants. With this multi-omics data, he will be able to develop a Machine Learning classifier to identify cancer clones associated with disease progression and drug resistance in Multiple Myeloma, a type of blood cancer. The model will be used by clinicians for drug-resistance classification using resistance-specific biomarkers.
Biography
Danson Loi obtained his BSc in Biochemistry and Cell Biology with first-class honours from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). During his undergraduate studies, he obtained the following awards: Talent Development Scholarship by the HKSAR Government, Academic Excellence Award from the university and Gold Medal in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition in 2018. In 2020, he won the Top Prize in the MIT HealthHack with a virtual A&E triage and remote queueing system. He was awarded his MPhil in Life Science by HKUST in 2022. He is currently pursuing his DPhil research and studies at the University of Oxford as both a Croucher Scholar and a Hong Kong Jockey Club Scholar.