Many genetic variants have been found to have a linkage with genetic diseases, but the understanding of their functional roles in causing diseases are still limited. An international research team, including a biomedical scientist from City University of Hong Kong (CityU), has developed a high-throughput biological assay technique which enabled them to conduct a systematic analysis on the impact of nearly 100,000 genetic variants on the transcription factors’ binding with DNA. Their findings provided valuable data for finding key biomarkers of type 2 diabetes for diagnostics and treatments. And they believe that the new technique can be applied to studies of variants associated with other genetic diseases.