Tang Prize Newsletter

We wish you happy holidays and a prosperous, joyful 2018!

This October 11, Tang Prize CEO Jenn-Chuan Chern visited with Phillip Allen Sharp, one winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Sharp is one of the earliest international advisors to the Tang Prize and was involved in the selection process in 2014, the inaugural year. He said that the Tang Prize will continue to exert a great influence on science around the world. After two years of successful prizes that have garnered the laudings of authorities around the world, Sharp noted the difficulty of accomplishing what the Tang Prize has accomplished.

Popular US magazine The Scientist put together a list of the top international science prizes for its recent October issue—the Tang Prize and its founder Samuel Yin were among them. Japan, Israel, and many other countries around the world have established top level prizes as well. Sharp added that world-wide recognition is not an easy feat to accomplish. He urged the prize to keep pushing itself further in earning the recognition; if such dedication is maintained over a long period, the prize will certainly become as well-known as other international prizes.

Sharp is one of the Nobel laureate discussants who talks with middle school students in the USA Science & Engineering Festival, an event that has been held four times since 2010. He urged the Tang Prize to continue its involvement in similar work—imparting knowledge to the next generation. Read more

President of the Moscow-based International Academy of Engineering and the Russian Academy of Engineering Boris Vladimirovich Gusev led a cadre of scholars on a visit to Taiwan with the purpose of holding an information session on collaboration in technology transfer between Taiwan and Russia on November 22 in Taipei. Seeing the opportunity to espouse the values of the Tang Prize, prize CEO Jenn-Chuan Chern, who is also president of the Taiwan Chapter of the International Academy of Engineering, invited the group to the Tang Prize Foundation offices to show what the prize has done and continues to do internationally.  

Gusev, the president of these two world-leading institutions, is himself an expert in the durability and structural strength of composite concrete materials and is widely known in academic circles for his work on structure and corrosion, insulating materials, and clean rooms. Responding to his recent visit, Gusev said that there are many opportunities for collaboration between Taiwan and Russia, though there is much room for development and many challenges that will require the persistence of both sides to break through.

His opinion of the Tang Prize is equally optimistic. He notes that the prize is inclusive of many disparate disciplines, even such different fields as engineering and the humanities are under the umbrella of the Tang Prize. It stresses universal contributions that have had a substantial and positive impact on humanity. Although the prize has only been in action since 2014, Gusev maintains that the prize is gaining in reputation. With the four fields of the prize all aimed at the most pressing current problems of humanity, Gusev believes that the Tang Prize has come “just in time” for the world. Read more

Feng Zhang, James and Patricia Poitras Professor in Neuroscience at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, appeared in articles in Science and Nature on the development of a new gene editing and diagnostic technique with Cas13. The new technique can help researchers better understand pathological changes to genes and use its ability to pinpoint abnormalities to provide channels for therapy.

When most people hear the word CRISPR, they think of CRISPR/Cas9, the paradigmatic genetic editing technology. But, like a word processor, editing is not its only feature.

Zhang, a Chinese-American scientist, was one of the key developers of the CRISPR/Cas9 platform, which was the reason he was awarded the Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science in 2016, along with Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna. Recently, Zhang has been developing Cas13, a CRISPR protein, as a genetic diagnostic tool. In this new method, Cas13 attaches itself to RNA and, rather than cutting it, edits the code at that specific point. This new method can correct mutations on the RNA that would, if left as is, very likely cause harm to the organism. And since it only targets the RNA, there are no permenant changes made to the organism’s DNA, though it comes with all the same benefits of correcting genetic errors that lead to inheritable disease.

On his trip to New York, prize CEO Jenn-Chuan Chern met with Zhang, who showed him the 3D model of Cas13. Zhang mentioned that he is doing research that combines both of his professional interests, genetic editing and neurology, to find the elements that contribute to cognitive decline and disease. Chern congratulated Zhang on the new developments made by his lab and the new addition of a baby boy to his family. Read more

A tall-figure in the fields of Chinese and Eastern Studies, William Theodore de Bary, a Tang Prize laureate in the field of Sinology, has left a great legacy to posterity. After de Bary’s passing this July, his long-time student, colleague, and friend Rachel E. Chung has taken up the torch of promoting de Bary’s work. She believes that de Bary is not only a bridge between Eastern and Western cultures, he was more importantly a crucial figure in reviving an interest in Confucianism. He is perhaps just as well known for his unique teaching method, one that centers around conversation with students that, one could argue, dates back to Confucious himself.

Tang Prize CEO Jenn-Chuan Chern met with Chung this October at the school where de Bary taught for over 70 years, Columbia University. Chung, now the director of the University Committee on Asia and the Middle East, a position once held by de Bary, discussed the worthy work that will be done by the DB Global Humanities Foundation (founded and named for de Bary).

Before his passing, de Bary designated his Tang Prize grant to the founding of the DB Global Humanities Foundation, which will be the leading unit for work related to the great conversation and other interculturational initiatives, of which the Symposium is of central importance. The Symposium is a student led conversation on great texts that began out of de Bary’s unique teaching method. The foundation will publish instructional materials and working guides for the Symposium, as well as provide training for its discussion leaders. To date, the Symposium has been held in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, rural China, Singapore, Bangkok, Mumbai, Tokyo, Tokushima, Cape Town, and New York City. And this summer students of Taiwan’s own Wagor Junior High School will hold a workshop.

The Tang Prize Foundaiton is itself involved in interacting with the youth in its many on-campus talks about the prize and its laureates. It hopes to use these events to pique an interest in the work of its laureates, including that of Wm Theodore de Bary. Like de Bary, the Tang Prize believes that through deep discussion on the world greatest classics, students can find both personal joy and practical solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Read more Press

On his recent trip to the US, Tang Prize CEO Jenn-Chuan Chern visited with Lance Liebman, former dean of the College of Law at Columbia to discuss the current state of the intenational rule of law.

Liebman, who is Director Emeritus of the American Law Institute (ALI), is a world-renowned scholar in the field of law. On the subject of the prize, Liebman said that he hopes to see the prize become the most prestige award in the legal field, and thereby promote more interaction among legal professionals and academics. 

International law has recently undergone changes. He pointed out that the changes are especially marked in Europe, with the withdrawal of the United Kingdom and the dictatorship in Poland and Hungary. But, there have been more positive forces at work as well. The European Law Institute (ELI), for one, was established three years ago as an effort of promoting democratic Rule of Law. Liebman suggested that the Tang Prize could also build more cooperation with academic and professional associations in the field, such as the ELI, University of London, Harvard University, and Columbia Law School. 

Liebman, who has taught in Europe, Aisa, and the Middle East, and at the richly diverse Columbia University, suggests inviting Tang Prize laureates to interact with students at Columbia University. When students meet and speak with truly inspiring and insightful people, the results can be amazing for the field of law, argued Liebman.

Read more

Already in its third year, the Gro Brundtland Week of Women in Sustainable Development was established in 2015 after the inaugural Tang Prize laureate in Sustainable Development and namesake of the event, Gro Harlem Brundtland, assigned a portion of the funds from her Tang Prize winnings to support women in the sciences. It is hoped that this event will help foster more women researchers in the fields of sustainability and health.

As of its third year, it has seen outstanding female researchers from eight countries, including Pakistan, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Yemen, India, Uganda, Jordan, and Taiwan. These researchers have delivered reports on research in their own countries, especially that on public health and sustainability, and have made important connections with their counterparts from other countries.

Gro Week provides women of developing countries with a platform on which to express and exchange ideas. Internationally-renown speakers are invited for the six day event, and after the week of symposiums and panels, the researchers deliver their final report in a closing ceremony at the Tang Prize Foundation.

 “They are the seeds. And with the help of the Tang Prize and the reputation of Gro Brundtland, they can grow and influence the entire field of sustainable development. Truly this week and the connections it makes have gone far above my expectations,” says Huey-Jen Jenny Su, President of NCKU and runner of the event.

The female researchers for 2018 will be announced on January 5, and the week proper will be held March 28 – April 3. The researchers will visit other areas of Taiwan before attending the closing ceremony in Taipei. As it is the final year of the event, Gro Brundtland herself plans to attend the ceremony to deliver the awards to the 2018 winners and to give a speech. Read more

Maker culture has recently taken Taiwan by storm. Innovation isn’t always a gift from above. Sometimes it comes from people just like you and I. That is the premise behind the Sparking Innovation—2017 Innovation in High Schools Competition. Students from advanced humanities and science courses engage in a heated competition of the mind to see whose innovative project can win the praise of the judges. Who exactly are these creative students who, despite a full load of course work, have dedicated themselves to innovation? And what ideas have come out of their brilliant young minds?

National Tainan First Senior High School’s project team is led by Mr. Chen, the school’s Chinese teacher. Chen said on his Facebook page recently that the Tang Prize allows teachers like him to be bold and go outside of their professional field to explore other ideas. It allows students, parents, and teachers to interact; and it gives the students especially a stage on which to create innovative ideas. In the true Maker spirit, the project from Tainan First is the creation of a Chinese medicine themed board game inspired by two fields of the Tang Prize: Sinology and Biopharmaceutical Science. Students are learning about ancient Chinese schools of thought, such as the Yin-yang school and Daoist school, and are engaged in reading the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor and the Bei Ji Qian Jin Yao Fang, two canonical works in Chinese medicine. All of their studies will be compiled into a tabletop game series that will promote the ideas of this ancient and venerable tradition.

National Chung-Hsing Senior High School’s team is working in cooperation with the Nantou County government’s Department of Social Welfare and the local police to better understand the local elderly population. These young students are teaming up to understand law, and to spread that knowledge to younger and older generations. This is especially crucial for the elderly of society, as they are often the unknowing targets of fraud. But over and above the legal content of the project, the interaction will bring warmth into the hearts of the older generation this winter.

The team at Taipei First Girls' High School have said that they are not just passive learners; they are also the providers of learning. Their team, who will work in cooperation with the Taipei Makers’ Education Plan and the Tang Prize competition, will create 3D models that will be used to teach younger students about popular science topics as well as the rule of law.

These and other high school teams have been hard at work over the past few months forming their teams and engaging in discussion about the Tang Prize fields and innovation. With no shortage of help from teachers and experts, they have themselves done something truly extraordinary, they have brought new ideas into the world. Whether it is service to society or games for the mind, these young minds are engaging in exactly the same type of work and the same kind of attitude that the Tang Prize encourages by awarding achievement. When the results of these young innovators’ projects are presented on February 2, 2018, we are sure to see what young minds are capable of.

Read more: Tang Prize X Young Minds fan page