The 4th Tang Prize Award Ceremony was our first virtual ceremony. Though due to the pandemic, eight laureates living in the US, the UK, Japan, Singapore, Bangladesh, Colombia, and Lebanon couldn’t travel to Taiwan to receive the awards, the ubiquity of the internet had enabled them to accept congratulations and applause from the audience worldwide. Still, we hope that with the world order being restored gradually, the 5th award ceremony can follow the tradition of the Tang Prize established in 2014 and take place on site in Taipei.
Thanks to the advancement in technologies, the 2020 laureates could also present lectures online, giving personal accounts of their lifetime’s experiences, what they have learned from them, and their hard-earned research findings. In her lecture, recipient of the prize in Sustainable Development Dr. Jane Goodall told simple stories to deliver profound messages and encouraged us to remain hopeful. Three doctors who were jointly awarded the prize in Biopharmaceutical Science, Charles Dinarello, Marc Feldmann, and Tadamitsu Kishimoto, gave talks on the topics of “Interleukin-1: The Prime Mediator of Systemic and Local Inflammation,” “Translating Molecular Insights in Autoimmunity into Effective Therapy,” and “Interleukin-6: From Arthritis to CAR-T and COVID-19” respectively, shedding light on the role cytokines play in inflammatory diseases and COVID-19 as well as the corresponding treatments. Sinology laureate and renowned historian Prof. Wang Gungwu offered a comprehensive overview of China’s past and present in “From Wen to Shi: China’s Road.” Three NGOs located in Bangladesh, Colombia and Lebanon shared their experiences of successfully utilizing public interest litigation to speak up for vulnerable groups and to seek environmental, social and judicial justice.
You can read all the highlights in the articles included in this newsletter. We also cordially invite you to watch the award ceremony (https://youtu.be/56GwDm3EL0g) to relive the heart-warming moments and witness once again the laureates’ charm and charisma.
