Example applications include dermatoglyphics and soft biometrics. His research concentrated on paleoprimatology, dermatoglyphics, description of biological variation of ethnic minorities in China. In 1964, Dong published the paper "Study of dermatoglyphics of Zhuang nationality in Guangxi". The longest one he found was "dermatoglyphics" at 15 letters. The scientific study of fingerprints is called dermatoglyphics.