Tang Prize Newsletter

We are delighted to announce – 2018 Tang Prize is coming!

The third Tang Prize laureates will be announced on June 18-21 in four consecutive days. Awardees will come to Taipei for a week-long event, including the award ceremony on September 21^st. Save the date and get to know these great figures in person. Live stream on Tang Prize official website and Facebook page.

The spirit of Tang Prize Biopharmaceutical Science recognizes significant advances toward preventing, diagnosing and treating human diseases to improve human health. Our alliances are across the continents. This year Inaugural Tang Prize Biopharmaceutical Science laureate Professor Tasuku Honjo and 2016 laureate Dr. Feng Zhang will present in the U.S., Japan and Korea.

Last April Tang Prize laureate Professor Emmanuelle Charpentier attracted more than 1,300 people attending the Tang Prize Lecture at the Experimental Biology, Chicago. A large part of the gene editing tool, CRISPR/Cas9, remains to be uncovered, and Dr. Zhang will report his latest research results, “Harnessing nature’s diversity for gene editing and beyond,” at the Tang Prize Lecture in 2018 Experimental Biology, San Diego, California.

Crossing the Pacific Ocean to Seoul, Korea, Professor Tasuku Honjo will present at the Opening Lecture (Tang Prize Lecture) of the 24^th International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) Congress. Professor Honjo’s talk focuses on the past and future of PD-1 blockade in immunotherapy.

Later this year, World Congress of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (WCP 2018), which is held every four year by International Union of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR), will take place in Kyoto, Japan. Professor Honjo and Dr. Zhang will both attend as speakers.

4/21	Prof. Feng Zhang	EB, San Diego, California
6/4	Prof. Tasuku Honjo	IUBMB, Seoul, Korea
7/1	Prof. Tasuku Honjo	WCP, Kyoto, Japan
7/3	Prof. Feng Zhang	WCP, Kyoto, Japan

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Yu Ying-shih Humanities Research Prize has come to the third year at the end of 2017. The prize was established when Mr. Yu Ying-shih, Inaugural Tang Prize Sinology laureate, received NT$ 10,000,000 of the Tang Prize Research Grant. Prize categories include Monographic Book Prize and Doctoral Thesis Prize. Cash prize is awarded to young researchers, recognizing their contribution in the humanities research.

The 2017 awardees have conducted their research in the U.S., Hong Kong and the Netherlands. Their fields of interest span across archeology, architecture, and literature. Monographic Book Prize winner, Hsiang-yin Sasha Chen, expressed her admiration to Mr. Yu, the greatest Chinese intellectual historian of his generation. Chen plans to use the cash prize to travel to Russia and Japan for historical material collection.

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TAIPEI – Nine finalists came head to head in the Second Innovation in High Schools Competition. The contest is hosted by the Tang Prize Foundation biennially in aim of encouraging high school students to be “Makers,” reaching out of the classrooms and beyond school curriculums. The project theme has to be related to the Tang Prize four categories: Sustainable Development, Biopharmaceutical Science, Sinology and Rule of Law. Each team receives NT$100,000 sponsorship and half a year to realize their proposals.

The Gold went to Tainan First High School, who used every cent to its maximum and came out with a board game. The game combined Chinese medicine and literature, corresponding to the Biopharmaceutical Science and Sinology of Tang Prize. Players become the doctors and make diagnosis, prescription according to the syndromes described in traditional Chinese literature. 

Zhongxing High School nailed the Silver. Their project focused on fraud prevention and comprehension of legacy and inheritance tax in the local aging community. Hsinchu High School took the Bronze home with “How Are You, Farming Village? What Farmers Taught Us.” Students worked alongside local farmers in a season of rice farming.

These students managed well under limited budget and resource, delivering exciting proposals and successful execution. They fully embodied the spirit of Tang Prize in which innovation may come in any shape and size and anyone can be the maker of change.

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Irma Boom, a renowned Dutch book designer, is a three-time Gold medalist for the “Most Beautiful Book of the World” given by the Liepzig Book Fair in 2000, 2003 and 2007. In 2001, she was awarded the Gutenberg Prize, a prize recognizing achievements in the field of book art, as the youngest recipient since the prize first launched in 1959. Boom’s books are also on display at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Ms. Boom never fails to conjure up visual marvels. She has created the smallest book in the world for a merely 5 cm in height, a book using coffee filter as its page, a book without any ink but only felt through its embossed surface, and a book resembling textile. The list goes on. The perception of books seems to be redefined with a new identity whenever Ms. Boom cast her spell.

“It always has to have a concept,” said Ms. Boom about her process of book design. Like the Tang Prize laureates, they started small and gradually advanced the frontiers of knowledge. The design of 2018 Tang Prize Diploma has been commissioned to Ms. Boom. On June 2^nd, Ms. Boom will talk about how her interpretation of Tang Prize embodies in the diploma design. The event, “2018 Tang Prize Diploma Unveiling”, is open to everyone. Do not miss the chance to peek into the mastermind and steal a glance at the diploma.

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Inaugural Tang Prize Sustainable Development laureate, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, used her Tang Prize Research Grant to establish Gro Brundtland Award. This prize offers young female scientists from developing countries to build connections among people with the same interest: public health and sustainable development. This is the third year and the last of the award since 2016.

First time in three years there were entries from the Caribbean and South Pacific Ocean. More than 35 applicants from 20 different countries contended for the award. Some winners of 2018 Gro Brundtland Award will travel as far as South Africa and Kenya. Awardees join fellow researchers in the Gro Brundtland Week of Women in Sustainable Development from March 28^th to April 3^rd. The week is packed with symposiums and panel discussion sessions led by eminent female scientists.

Dr. Brundtland will come to Taiwan and meet up these women researchers. A panel discussion, “Public Health and Environment in a Sustainable Society,” featuring Dr. Brundtland is scheduled on April 2^nd in Taipei. The closing ceremony will be concluded by Dr. Brundtland’s talk of “Sustainable Development Goals, a thirty year story of international collaboration” on April 3^rd.

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As humanity enjoys the fruit of economic growth and technology advances, inequality and climate change pose greater threats to the world. Dr. Samuel Yin established the Tang Prize in 2012 to encourage individuals across the globe to chart the middle path to sustainable development. Prize categories include Sustainable Development, Biopharmaceutical Science, Sinology, and Rule of Law. These are the pressing issues in the 21st century. Tang Prize is not merely an award. The contribution of the awardees will lead the global community to a better world.

Tang Prize in Sustainable Development recognizes groundbreaking innovations in technology and science that further the sustainability of human society; Biopharmaceutical Science awards original research that improves human health; Sinology showcases Chinese culture and its contribution to the development of human civilization. Rule of Law celebrates contribution to the legal studies and the realization of rule of law in contemporary societies.

Laureates are selected biennially on the basis of the originality of their work along with their contributions to society, irrespective of their nationality or ethnicity. Each prize categories may be shared by no more than three individuals. Tang Prize inaugurated the first laureates in 2014. The third, 2018, Tang Prize laureates will be unveiled this June over four days (18-21) of announcements. The announcements will be streamed in real time on the official website. Award ceremony is on September 21^st at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Taipei. Be sure to mark your schedule and keep your eyes on the Tang Prize for 2018.

9/19	Reception	National Palace Museum
9/21	Award Ceremony	Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall
9/21	Banquet	The Grand Hotel
9/22	Laureate Lecture	Howard Civil Service International House
9/24	Concert	National Concert Hall
9/25 │ 9/27	Masters’ Forums	High Schools and Universities
9/7  │ 10/28	Glory of the Tang Prize: Laureate and Diploma Exhibition (Taipei)	Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
11/2  │ 1/31	Glory of the Tang Prize: Laureate and Diploma Exhibition (Kaohsiung)	National Science and Technology Museum

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