(Yicai Global) June 12 -- A Shanghai medical institution has begun using the country's first self-developed genetic testing model to assess people at risk of conditions that affect blood flow in the heart and the brain.

Under the leadership of Gu Dongfeng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ping An Healthcare Diagnostics Center, a medical screening affiliate of Ping An Insurance Co. of China, and Boke Bioscience, a DNA sequencing startup, launched the application of MetaPRS, an evaluation model to predict cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke, and aneurysms, Yicai Global learned during the recent launch ceremony.

The research team formed the model that covers over 600 genetic variations which are relevant to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases by using data from more than 120,000 persons from 15 provincial-level regions in China over the past two decades.

Heart diseases are insidious, pose costly risks, and are easy to recur so genetic testing is needed to identify high-risk groups to prevent and intervene as soon as possible, Gu said to Yicai Global.

Genomic data from foreign countries do not necessarily represent Chinese people as well so the team developed the evaluation tool that is planned to be applied nationwide, per Lu Xiangfeng, a professor at China’s National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases who participated in the project.

Founded in 2015, the Ping An Healthcare Diagnostics Center runs 11 testing centers and eight medical laboratories nationwide, which should help widen the use of MetaPRS.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Emmi Laine