Focus Taiwan
Focus Taiwan
Taipei, Aug 1 (CNA) Six 2022 Tang Prize laureates from around the world were honored with the award for advancing the development of humanity in four fields in Taipei on Tuesday.
Prizes were awarded to Jeffrey Sachs in the category of sustainable development, Cheryl Saunders in the rule of law category, Jessica Rawson for Sinology, and to Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman, and Pieter Cullis for biopharmaceutical science.
In his acceptance speech, Sachs, a professor of economics at the University of Columbia, said that the world was facing three profoundly deep crises of continuing extreme property, environmental deflation and conflict.
Sustainable development seeks to end extreme poverty, address the ways to change technology to make humanity's economic well-being consistent with environmental sustainability, and to have peace and cooperation on the planet, said Sachs, who currently chairs Columbia's Center for Sustainable Development.
The three laureates in biopharmaceutical science were recognized "for the discovery of key vaccinology concepts and approaches, leading to the successful development of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines," according to the Tang Prize Foundation.
Drawing on her personal experience growing up in a small town in Hungary, Karikó, an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said she was a curious girl who watched with fascination the plants in the garden of her home, and the animals and wanted to learn more about the internal mechanism of living things.
"While I am accepting the Tang Prize, I think about all of the young girls who, like me, at their age, are curious about nature," she said. "I would like to encourage them to remain curious, believe in themselves, become a scientist, and make a better world around us."
In his acceptance speech, Weissman, director of vaccine research at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, said that the development of mRNA technology has been an incredible journey "marked by countless hours of dedication, perseverance, and the pursuit of scientific excellence."
Weissman said the award allows him to pursue other avenues and interests of importance, particularly mRNA therapeutics by lipid nanoparticles (LNP), and to reach out to lower-income countries and regions to help them develop their own mRNA research infrastructure.
Cullis, a Canadian professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of British Columbia, said he accepted the Tang Prize "with great humanity" because the Lipid nanoparticles for the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine that they work on "reflected over 50 years of work, many collaborators and a good deal of luck."
"If we hadn't had hundreds of people working with us over the years, we wouldn't have achieved any of this," he said.
Rawson, recipient of the award in Sinology, said she was fascinated by extraordinary Chinese silks and porcelains during her childhood, adding it was the British Museum that drew her deeper into studying China and its culture.
"I'm also very grateful to the British Museum because it shows to all of us not just China, of course, but many cultures in material form from around the world," said Rawson, a British art historian and honorary research associate at Oxford University's School of Archaeology.
"And we see not similarity, but diversity. And that is the thing that intrigued me most," Rawson said in her acceptance speech.
Meanwhile, Saunders, a laureate professor emeritus at the University of Melbourne, used her acceptance speech to reflect on the diversity of the contributions of previous recipients of the Tang Prize in the rule of law, saying it's humbling for her to be in their company.
Saunders said her work on comparative constitutional law had both theoretical and practical applications, including for the purposes of peace-building, constitutional transition, and effective global collaboration on pressing common problems, of which climate change is evident and urgent.
She said that her perspectives on the challenges of this project have been significantly shaped by the vast Asia Pacific region. "Everything I've done in the Asia Pacific region has been in active collaboration with others, some of whom are here today. I've learned so much from them all. And importantly, I've learned how much there is to know."
It was the first time in five years since 2018 that the biennial Tang Prize awards were presented to the winners in person, following the previous awarding ceremony held virtually and a one-year postponement of the 2022 award due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first edition of the Tang Prize was conferred two years after the award was founded in 2012, dubbed as the Asian Nobel Prize, with a cash prize of NT$40 million (US$1.28 million) and a research grant of NT$10 million allocated to each category, according to the foundation.