To encourage and award those who made important contributions to engineering technology, the IAE chooses its academicians and corresponding members on a regular basis and through a rigorous process.

Each branch and chapter of the IAE carefully vet all the nominees before the voting takes place at the IAE to decide the winners. This year the list of winners was approved by the 18 March Academician Conference conducted by remoting video and voting online due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. In 2020, 6 people were selected as academicians and 11 as corresponding members. Prof. Keh-Chyuan Tsai of National Taiwan University is one of the newly-minted academicians. His achievements that have earned him many international awards include teaching and researching the design of structures for earthquake resistance and promoting its practical application. Prof. Duu-Jong Lee, elected as corresponding member, was lauded for his contribution to the study of biomass energy and bioremediation which led to the development of innovative wastewater treatment technologies. Professor Shang-Hsien Hsieh, also been confirmed as corresponding member, specializes in engineering modeling and information management. In addition, he collaborated with more than 40 entrepreneurs to form the Taiwan BIM Task Group in order to make Taiwan’s industries more competitive. What these three candidates from Taiwan have accomplished has certainly won them worldwide acclaim.

News broke today (October 7) that 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was jointly awarded to 2016 Tang Prize laureates, Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Dr. Jennifer Doudna for the development of a method for genome editing. It marked the second time that Tang Prize recipients became Nobel Prize winners, with the first time being 2014 Tang Prize winners Dr. James P. Allison and Dr. Tasuku Honjo awarded Nobel Prizes in 2018.

Sharing the enormous pleasure brought by this glory, Dr. Jenn-Chuan Chern, CEO of the Tang Prize Foundation, immediately offered them his heartfelt congratulations, while also expressed his deep gratitude to the Tang Prize selection committee for having the great foresight to choose two laureates whose achievements are universally recognized.

Though living in two continents far away from each other, France’s leading microbiologist Dr. Charpentier and world-renown American RNA expert Dr. Dounda met in 2011 at a conference in Puerto Rico. This chance encounter heralded the beginning of their collaboration. Together, they successfully transform CRISPR/Cas (CRISPR-associated proteins), an adaptive immune defensive system originally found in bacteria and archaea, into a two component system (Cas9 and a single guide RNA). CRISPR/Cas9 is a simple, programmable and efficient genome-editing method that is able to deliver multiple single gRNAs simultaneously to target and remove unwanted genes.

In comparison with the previous gene editing platforms such as TALEN (transcription activator-like effector nuclease) or ZFN (zinc finger nuclease), CRISPR/Cas9 gets the upper hand for being more cost-effective, simple, efficient, precise and sensitive. It changed the science of genetics, opened the floodgates for the discovery and development of new therapies that benefit human beings, and can even help enhance biofuel and agricultural production. The concerted effort they put into the research on CRISPR/Cas9 has improved this technology by leaps and bounds and earned them an array of international awards, among which is the 2016 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science, jointly awarded to Dr. Charpentier, Dr. Doudna and Chinese-American bioengineer Dr. Feng Zhang.

To combat the coronavirus crisis, Dr. Doudna’s team is also developing CRISPR-based rapid diagnostics for COVID-19. She pointed out that CRISPR can detect RNA from the viral genome itself, which to some degree transcended the limitations faced by many IgM/IgG antibody tests in that it can spot the virus before patients’ immune cells start to produce antibodies. Moreover, CRISPR can easily be reprogrammed to search for different RNA or DNA sequences, therefore reducing the risk of failing to detect the novel coronavirus once it mutates.

Dr. Charpentier decided to use the fund from the Tang Prize Foundation to further examine how our innate immune compartment responds to the infection of S. pyogenes, a Gram-positive bacterium. As outlined in her research proposal, innate immune cells “possess…a vast array of germline encoded Pathogen Recognition Receptors (PRRs), such as Toll Like Receptors (TLRs)” and because “ten human TLRs evolved to recognize specific Pathogen Associated Molecular Patterns (PAPMs) shared among different bacterial species,” our body can promptly detect “microbial invaders albeit without the specificity characteristic of the adaptive immune system.”

Founded by Taiwanese entrepreneur Dr. Samuel Yin, the Tang Prize is aimed to draw the world’s attention to the wisdom mankind needs in order to deal with issues unique to the 21st century. It consists of four categorizes (Sustainable Development, Biopharmaceutical Science, Sinology and Rule of Law). With NT $50 million allocated to winners in each category (40 million prize money and 10 million research grant), it hopes to encourage the world’s top talent to work together for the betterment of human civilization. Awarded biannually since 2014, the Tang Prize announced its latest laureates in June 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Foundation decided to cancel this year’s award ceremony and banquet but has planned to invite the 2020 laureates to deliver speeches at major international conferences and to travel to Taiwan to receive the award, when the pandemic is no longer considered a global health threat.

On September 16, 2020, the online meeting of the Board of Presidents of INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING was held. The director of TCIAE, Dr. Jenn-Chuan CHERN, had a speech during the meeting. The following is the content:

I would like to give you a brief report on some of our main work and achievements. The Taiwan Chapter held its board of directors meeting on July 16th. President Gusev and Mr. Song-Jeng Huang, who is the director of Science and Technology Division of Taipei Representative Office in Moscow, were invited to talk about the interactions between Taiwan and Russia. A news article about their talks has been posted on the Taiwan Chapter’s website.

Thanks to the hard work of our administrator, all the information on our website is available in Chinese, English and Russian. We welcome members from other chapters to visit the website for any resources they need.

http://www.tciae.org.tw/

From June 18 to 21, 2020, we announced the latest Tang Prize winners. They are: Britain's Jane Goodall in Sustainable Development; America's Charles Dinarello, Marc Feldman, who is both British and Australian, and Japan’s Tadamitsu Kishimoto in Biopharmaceutical Science; Australia’s Wang Gungwu in Sinology; and for the prize in Rule of Law, it went to three non-governmental organizations: Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association based in Bangladesh, Dejusticia based in Colombia, and The Legal Agenda based in Agenda. They will share the prize money, 1.7 million US dollars.

On September 21 and 22, the Tang Prize Foundation will hold four Masters’ Forums, lifting the curtain on this year’s Tang Prize events. The Foundation cordially invites anyone interested to visit our official website and participate online in these thought-provoking conferences. (https://www.tang-prize.org/en/week.php?cat=94)

Sustainable Development

https://www.tang-prize.org/ton/develop_en.html


Biopharmaceutical Science

https://www.tang-prize.org/ton/science_en.html


Taiwan has been able to contain the spread of COVID-19, and so far people's lives here have not changed that much. But some travel restrictions are still in place. From this moment on, I think our focus should be on developing effective vaccines and drugs and on bringing them to market. It will require our collective efforts to achieve this goal. Finally, I hope everyone will take good care of themselves and I wish you all the best.

Welcome Taiwan’s scholars and experts to participate in the ICMMB seminar to be held in Moscow next June

https://www.icmmb2021.com/