Scientists each awarded 10 million yuan in Yunnan

The 2023 Tengchong Scientists Forum (TCSF) was held in Tenchong, southwest Yunnan’s Baoshan city, from December 1 to 3. Rao Zihe, Chinese Academy of Sciences academician, announced the winners of the First Tengchong Science Award.

The two award winners are Lu Yuming, academician at Chinese Academy of Sciences and Zhang Feng, Chinese-American scientist and professor at MIT. They were each awarded 10 million yuan.

Lu is internationally recognized as the pioneer in the field of liquid biopsy and a trailblazer in non-invasive prenatal testing. His groundbreaking work on the non-invasive testing method for Down syndrome has been successfully applied to clinical diagnosis, revolutionizing the modern approach to prenatal care in obstetrics and gynecology departments worldwide.

This technology has been adopted in over 100 countries, benefiting approximately 10 million pregnant women annually. Professor Lu is widely acclaimed as the Father of Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing.

Professor Zhang Feng is a top scientist in the fields of life science and medicine, and one of the pioneers of CRISPR-Cas gene editing. In 2013, he successfully applied this technology to gene editing of mammalian and human cells.

In the following ten years, Zhang made a large number of breakthroughs in research, applying related technologies and systems to large-scale gene screening and pathogen nucleic acid detection for the first time. His research has revolutionized life science, biomedicine, molecular breeding and molecular detection.

Jointly held by Yunnan Provincial Government and China Association for Science and Technology, the 2023 Tengchong Scientists Forum aims to affirm science’s leading role in the future, with the forum theme being “science and green development.”

Nearly 2,000 participants from China and beyond attended the forum, including 100 plus academicians and scientists such as Gu Binglin, Xu Zhihong and Rao Zihe. Presidents of more than 20 well-known universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University attended the forum, together with top scholars in the AI field, well-known young scientists, and Fields Prize winners.

The Tengchong Science Award is the first social ward for scientists, which is established with a single prize of 10 million yuan, initiated purely in Chinese mainland and selected among international scientists. It is also the first science award established by social organizations and directly named after a border city in China.

It mostly awards global scientists or research teams who have made major break throughs in biomedicine, modern agriculture, new materials, green energy and other fields. They solved major problems and challenges faced by mankind through technological innovation, with their research projects resulting in significant economic or social benefits.

By YICC reporters