2024-11-20
Esther Tseng /photo by Lin Min-hsuan /tr. by Phil Newell

Tang Prize laureates “have demonstrated exceptional professionalism and conscience, developing groundbreaking technologies, advancing public health, fostering cultural exchange, and championing human rights and global justice. Their contributions are immeasurable, and we are deeply grateful for their dedication. We believe their insights will guide us through these turbulent times, and invite all who share our vision to collaborate in building a bright future.” So said Chern Jenn-chuan, CEO of the Tang Prize Foundation, in his opening remarks at the Tang Prizes awards ceremony.

The Tang Prize Foundation (TPF) invited the winners of the sixth Tang Prizes to come to Taiwan from late September to early October of 2024 to receive their awards. The TPF also arranged for them to take part in the Tang Prize Masters’ Forums and visit the National Palace Museum and other sites.

Svetlana Mojsov, one of the winners of the Tang Prize for Biopharmaceutical Science, said that when she came to Taiwan she wanted to go birdwatching. Although her plans were somewhat disrupted by Typhoon Krathon, she and her husband Michel C. Nussenzweig, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, were able to observe some black-faced spoonbills.

Omar M. Yaghi, winner of the Tang Prize for Sustainable Development, not only visited the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), it was here in Taiwan that he held his first-ever dialogue with high-school students. Surrounded by intensely curious pupils from National Hsinchu Senior High, Professor Yaghi did something he rarely does: publicly spoke about his personal journey. He encouraged the students to adopt a positive philosophy of life to overcome whatever obstacles their environment presents them with, and said that hard times also have the power to inspire creativity.

Solutions for global problems

TPF CEO Chern Jenn-chuan pointed out that while in recent years the world has faced severe crises including the Covid-19 pandemic, accelerated global warming, and numerous military conflicts, the research and contributions made by Tang Prize laureates can help guide the world out of its difficulties. He pointed to the example of the metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs) developed by Omar Yaghi, which offer new solutions in the quest for net-zero global carbon emissions by 2050.

Joel F. Habener, Svetlana Mojsov, and Jens Juul Holst were jointly awarded the Tang Prize for Biopharmaceutical Science for their development of medications for type 2 diabetes. Chern says that the world faces inequality in access to healthcare resources, and obesity is a condition that can lead to more than ten types of diseases. The contributions of these three scientists can effectively alleviate the suffering of people who are obese or have diabetes. Meanwhile Mary Robinson, the winner of the Tang Prize for Rule of Law, has throughout her career shown concern for disadvantaged communities and for women. The concept of climate justice that she advocates has inspired many people to reflect deeply on questions of virtue and justice.

A pioneer in the science of sustainability

In his lecture series in Taiwan, including his Tang Prize Master’s Forums address at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Omar Yaghi, a professor of chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, used easily comprehensible concepts and images to explain how new materials including MOFs and COFs are already being widely used in the design of carbon capture and hydrogen and methane storage technologies, as well as being applied in water harvesting and purification in arid regions.

Yaghi is also working with General Electric Corporation and startup companies in the US to create portable MOF water harvesters. In the desert these can collect hundreds of liters of potable water per day.

Yaghi does not hide the fact that he comes from a family of refugees living in Jordan, where water was only supplied once every two weeks, making every drop precious.
The TPF arranged for Yaghi to visit TSMC and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). The ITRI hoped that in developing technologies for environmental sustainability its researchers can work with Yaghi’s team to explore solutions to protect the environment. Yaghi suggested that Taiwan has many advantages, including a great deal of experience with mass production, the ability to transform prototypes into products, and rapid R&D, and he waxed positive about Taiwan’s foundations for industrializing and commercializing MOFs.

Social and climate justice

When Rule of Law Prize laureate Mary Robinson went to the Waishuangxi Campus of Soochow University to deliver her Tang Prize Masters’ Forums address, she learned that in 1993 the university invited Nelson Mandela, late president of South Africa and a lifelong human rights activist, to visit the school, and gave him an honorary doctorate in law. This made her feel all the more at home.

Robinson always wears a dandelion brooch, and in many speeches she has pointed out that dandelion seeds are spread by the wind and the plant resiliently grows on all the earth’s continents. This has inspired “Project Dandelion,” which she actively promotes. The project emphasizes the role of women-led climate justice actions and networks, as it is the poor who are the first to feel the negative impacts of climate change, with disadvantaged women suffering even more.

Robinson pointed out that even as the world keeps a close watch on the Russia–Ukraine war, it ignores the severity of the impact of war on the environment. In 2023 she twice took a train to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, and she noted that one-third of Ukraine’s territory suffers contamination from landmines and unexploded ordnance and there is pollution of soil, waterways, and forests from shelling, fires, and floods. The “most egregious example,” she said, was the destruction by Russia of a large dam, flooding villages and farmland. At this critical moment, it is even more ­important to integrate environmental ­policies and environmental rights into national legal systems and international treaties.

Helping obese people and diabetics

Hung Mien-chie, president of Taiwan’s China Medical University, noted at the 2024 Tang Prize Masters’ Forums that the forward-looking research of the Biopharmaceutical Science Prize laureates has made outstanding contributions to the control of type 2 diabetes and obesity, benefiting the 500 million diabetes sufferers and nearly 1 billion obese people worldwide.

Joel F. Habener and Svetlana Mojsov, then colleagues in the Endocrine Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, synthesized GLP-1 (7–37)—a truncated form of glucagon-­like peptide-1 (GLP-1)—and identified it as a bioactive hormone that can stimulate insulin secretion. This important discovery redefined the long-sought-after “incretin” (an intestine-secreted hormone that triggers insulin release), and they proved that GLP-1 (7–37) has the potential to treat type 2 diabetes and to be used in diabetes prevention.
Meanwhile, in faraway Denmark, Jens Juul Holst of the University of Copenhagen independently isolated GLP-1 (1–37) and GLP–1 (7–36) amide, and successfully identified the latter as an active incretin with superior functions in terms of reducing blood sugar as well as suppressing glucagon, peristalsis, and appetite.

Whether it be the contributions to human health made by the three winners of the Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science, Omar Yaghi’s advocacy of a philosophy of life that overcomes the obstacles in one’s environment, or the rebuilding of public trust in the rule of law emphasized by Mary Robinson, the winners of the sixth Tang Prizes all are working to find sustainable, peaceful, and healthy ways forward for today’s confused and confusing world.

Article and photos courtesy of Taiwan Panorama November 2024