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According to the Presidential Office’s Personnel Order of March 15, 2021, Academia Sinica President James C. Liao has been reappointed to serve for a second term from June 21, 2021 to June 20, 2026. President Liao has in turn reappointed Academicians Mei-Yin Chou, Fu-Tong Liu, and Chin-shing Huang to continue serving as Vice Presidents for the Division of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, Division of Life Sciences, and Division of Humanities and Social Sciences respectively.
Academia Sinica’s 34th Convocation of Academicians and 33rd Election of Academicians and Honorary Academicians was originally scheduled to be held in 2020, but had to be rescheduled to July 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, due to the ongoing severity of the pandemic in Taiwan, the Conveners for the Convocation of Academicians and the Preparatory Committee for the Election of Academicians jointly decided to postpone the Convocation again, until July 2022. All future plans will be made according to Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) policies.
Although Taiwan’s pandemic alert level is rising, and gatherings have been restricted, the national treasures of Taiwan are still available at your fingertips. Following the success of last year’s “The Museum Opens Up” virtual event, the Academia Sinica Center for Digital Cultures (ASCDC) and the Chinese Association of Museums are teaming up again for this year’s International Museum Day (May 18), calling on even more collecting institutions across Taiwan to jointly launch the “Treasure Hunt Challenge” special event.
The Nobel Prize Summit is hosted by the Nobel Foundation and organized by the US National Academy of Sciences in partnership with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The first Nobel Prize Summit “Our Planet, Our Future” took place virtually on 26 – 28 April. The meeting brought together Nobel Prize laureates, scientists, policy makers, business leaders, and youth leaders to explore the question: What can be achieved in this decade to put the world on a path to a more sustainable, more prosperous future for all of humanity?
On April 26, 2021, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) announced its newly elected 120 Members and 30 International Members, with Dr. Yi-Fang Tsay, Distinguished Research Fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Molecular Biology, being elected as a new International Members for her outstanding achievements in plant science. Dr. Tsay expressed surprise upon hearing the news, considering herself deeply honored to have her low-key research efforts in Taiwan recognized by the international scholarly community. A scholar consistently devoted to contributions and breakthroughs in her field of study, Dr. Tsay encourages everyone to persist in the pursuit of their true interests.
Fatty liver is a prevalent liver disease in Taiwan and worldwide and is associated with obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Although fatty liver is normally asymptomatic, its progression can lead to hepatitis, cirrhosis, and even liver cancer. The research team of Dr. Ruey-Hwa Chen at Institute of Biological Chemistry identifies a novel autophagy regulatory mechanism and a potential of preventing fatty liver progression by manipulating this mechanism. The study has recently been published on February 26 in Nature Communications.
Pancreatic cancer is known to be vicious, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the type that accounts for 95% of pancreatic cancer and so far it is still incurable. An added fact makes PDAC doomed lies in its tendency to have metastasis, meaning cancer cells have already spread to other organs, when diagnosed.
Academia Sinica President James Liao had been awarded the 2021 Samson-Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation in Alternative Energy and Smart Mobility for Transportation, with his research being praised for exhibiting “a combination of basic research and applied research at a high level” and achieving “a world-leading breakthrough research in the field of bio-energy”.
Dr. Wendy W. Hwang-Verslues, Assistant Professor of Genomics Research Center, discovered that expression of Desmoglein2 (DSG2), a component of the desmosome complex that enhances adhesion between cells, is strongly correlated with poor prognosis and high recurrence in breast cancer. Based on the oxygen level in the microenvironment, the level of DSG2 expression can dynamically increase and decrease to facilitate different stages of cancer cell release from the primary tumor and colonization of a new site in the body. These findings reveal the importance of DSG2 in all stages of breast cancer metastasis and make DSG2 a good candidate for finding a way to inhibit breast cancer metastasis. This research has been published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
In the study, professor Shang-Cheng Hung, director of Genomics Research Center assembled all interested colleagues to a series brainstorm sessions, a decision was made to look through all existing medicines and supplements to find potential drugs to treat SARS-CoV-2 infections. By examining 2855 small molecules, that is, all the approved and available drugs for human and animals in the world right now, plus close to 200 alternative Chinese herbal medicines, they narrowed the candidates down to five. Of the five, two are approved pharmaceutical compounds, and three are herbal medicines. The team has filed patent and published their study in the PNAS journal in January, 2021.
Dicarbon(0) C2, the smallest diatomic molecule with a carbon–carbon bond. In contrast to the natural occurrence of F2, O2 and N2 as diatomic species, C2 is too reactive for experimental studies in the condensed phase, which has been only detected at extremely high temperature (> 3500 °C) in the blue flame and in interstellar atmosphere. There have been numerous synthetic attempts to stabilize C2 experimentally with many kinds of chemical ligand strategy. So far, efforts meet deadlock, as bonding situation of the central C2 differ significantly from those of free C2. Thus, the nature of the bond and electronic states in C2 has limited to only theoretical simulations with controversial outcomes and disagreements within the Chemical Science community.
Dr. Han-Chung Wu, Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology and Director of the Biomedical Translation Research Center at Academia Sinica, was elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) of the United States in December 2020. This is among the highest achievable honors for an academic inventor. The award ceremony will be held in Florida, United States, on June 7 to 9, 2021.
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