Hongkongers look to gene tests to tell whether they'll be better at Chinese or prone to an illness

A former Hospital Authority manager and chest specialist by training, Dr Kwok Yuk-lung now finds himself championing a growing new field in Hong Kong, one that he calls a "health-changing technology".

"This is technology that will keep us healthy, it's not just about treating disease," he says.

Kwok is talking about genetic testing, or the analysis of DNA to identify instructions in our biological code that can lead to an illness or influence how we develop.

"We are the first generation in human history to have access to our own genetic information; who can change our ways of seeing health," says Kwok, medical director of LeGene, a private clinic offering genetic services.

Besides determining more superficial physical traits such as hair and eye colour, the information stored in our genetic database and unlocked through clinics like Kwok's can reveal the risk of developing diseases (for example, the mutated BRCA1/2 genes associated with breast cancer) and the underlying causes of mysterious health problems. The tests are now even being used as indicators of a child's aptitude for sport or which subjects he or she will do well in at school.

"It's totally different from the old way of checking health," Kwok says. "Back then, you could do scans, you could do blood tests and so on to see if anything existed, but only on that day. So if you scanned one day but your cancer started growing the next, you wouldn't find anything.

"That's the gap that's filled by genetic science. We're not testing [to find out] if there's anything wrong today, but if there's anything wrong with your operation manual from day one, that will go on until the end of your life."