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The World Health Organization considered the widespread of COVID-19 over the world as a pandemic. There is still a lack of understanding of its origin, transmission, and treatment methods. Understanding the influencing factors of the COVID-19 can help mitigate its spread, but little research on the spatial factors has been conducted. Therefore, this study explores the effects of urban geometry and socio-demographic factors on the COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong. For each patient, the places they visited during the incubation period before going to hospital were identified, and matched with corresponding attributes of urban geometry (i.e., building geometry, road network, greenspace) and socio-demographic factors (i.e., demographic, educational, economic, household and housing characteristics) based on the coordinates. The local cases were then compared with the imported cases using the stepwise logistic regression, the logistic regression with case-control of time, and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression to identify factors influencing local disease transmission. Results show that the building geometry, road network and certain socio-economic characteristics are significantly associated with COVID-19 cases. In addition, the results indicate that urban geometry is playing a more important role than the socio-demographic characteristics in affecting the COVID-19 incidences. These findings provide a useful reference to the government and the general public as to the spatial vulnerability of the COVID-19 transmission and to take appropriate preventive measures in high-risk areas.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most prevalent cancers in developed countries. On the other hand, CRC is also one of the most curable cancers if it is detected in early stages through regular colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy. Since CRC develops slowly from precancerous lesions, early detection can reduce both the incidence and mortality of the disease. Fecal occult blood test is a widely used non-invasive screening tool for CRC. Although fecal occult blood test is simple and cost-effective in screening CRC, there is room for improvement in terms of the accuracy of the test. Genetic dysregulations have been found to play an important role in CRC development. With better understanding of the molecular basis of CRC, there is a growing expectation on the development of diagnostic tests based on more sensitive and specific molecular markers and those tests may provide a breakthrough to the limitations of current screening tests for CRC. In this review, the molecular basis of CRC development, the characteristics and applications of different non-invasive molecular biomarkers, as well as the technologies available for the detection were discussed. This review intended to provide a summary on the current and future molecular diagnostics in CRC and its pre-malignant state, colorectal adenoma.

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A new remote wet lab allowing residents to maintain social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic and perform a corneal suturing task on porcine eyes with remote attending feedback is described.