Building Genetic Literacy Through Decoding The Hong Kong Emblem

Far outpacing Moore's law, the growth of genomics, sequencing the genetic code of all living organisms, has been predicted to overtake the data volumes produced by astronomy, streaming video, and social media. The effects of the genomics revolution are already touching all our lives, and our health and wellbeing in the 21st century. To better equip people with the literacy and training to make informed decisions and work in this new genomic era a group of us launched Bauhinia Genome, a grassroots, citizen science project using the crowdfunded sequencing of the genome of the Hong Kong floral emblem to better understand where this mysterious species came from, and train local students to assemble and analyse the data. Crucial skills needed for this field to advance, as well as engage the public through local pride. Over the past decade, this journey has taken us from classrooms and hackerspaces to radio and TV studios, engaging the public and inspiring curiosity. In April 2025, the project finally culminated in a scientific milestone: the assembly of a complete, gapless reference genome of the Hong Kong Bauhinia, shedding light on a century-old botanical mystery. This study illustrates how genomics can connect people to science through culture and identity, and offers a model for other communities to explore the DNA of their own emblems — and, in doing so, better understand themselves.

This month Bangkok Scientifique welcomes Scott Edmunds who has for 15 years been Editor of the open science journal and repository Gigascience at BGI, the world's largest genomics organisation. With a background in cancer genetics, his PhD at the Royal London Hospital was on the molecular pathology of ocular melanoma. After postdoctoral research at the WHO International Agency for Research in Cancer in Lyon and at Queen Mary, University of London he then moved into open access publishing where he launched and ran journals publishing genomics research. He is passionate about open data, teaching data management at HKU and working on the Boards of Open Data Hong Kong, the Dryad Digital Repository and Make Data Count to promote the fight for open knowledge. From getting involved in crowdsourcing disease outbreak data, Scott has helped found a number of other citizen science and education projects including BauhiniaGenome and CitizenScience.Asia.

### Event Details

• Date: Thursday, 30th October 2025
• Time: 19:00
• Venue: Public House Sukhumvit 31

This event is free of charge. We do however ask that you please consider supporting Public House by purchasing your choice of food and drink during the event. Public House has kindly agreed to host BKKSci free of charge. This is our way of thanking them for their support.

We welcome everyone with a curious mind, from seasoned science pros to complete newcomers. See you there for what's sure to be a fascinating night.