Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey was named winner of the 2014 Wolf Prize in Chemistry Jan. 17 in recognition of his “numerous original contributions to the programmable and practical synthesis of complex carbohydrates and glycoproteins,” Taipei City-based Academia Sinica said.
Founded by Ricardo Subriana y Lobo Wolf and his wife Francisca, Wolf Prizes are awarded annually to those who have made outstanding contributions in the sciences of arts, Academia Sinica said. Five or six prizes are awarded each year in agriculture, chemistry, mathematics, medicine and physics, with one prize awarded in the arts. The prizes were first presented in 1978.
The awards are bestowed by the President of Israel at a ceremony in Jerusalem. The prize has a status approaching that of the Nobel Prize.
According to Academia Sinica, Wong is responsible for important advances in carbohydrate chemistry and biology associated with cancer progression, bacterial and viral infection and immunological function, as well as the development of vaccines, therapeutics and glycan microarrays for the analysis of protein-carbohydrate interaction.
Wong’s team has recently made several important discoveries in the area of glycoscience, the institution said, including the synthesis of cancer vaccines and advances in anti-viral and anti-bacterial research, making him an undisputed world leader in this field. Wong has published more than 700 academic papers and four reference books, and obtained more than 100 patents.
Wong has received numerous accolades throughout his long career, Academia Sinica said. Most recently, in 2012, he won the American Chemical Society Arthur C. Cope Award, the society’s highest honor, and the Nikkei Asia Prize for Science, Technology and Innovation. Wong currently serves as Chief Scientific Advisor to the ROC Cabinet.
Former Academia Sinica Vice President Yang Shang-fa was awarded the Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 1991, and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics was bestowed on Academician Yau Shing-tung in 2010. Wong is the first scholar based in Taiwan to receive the award. (SDH)
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