Taipei, Aug. 25 (CNA) Japanese scientist Tasuku Honjo, a co-winner of the first Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science, and his wife will visit Taiwan and attend the award ceremony on September 18.
Tang Prize Foundation CEO Chern Jenn-chuan made the announcement after he visited the 72-year-old chair professor at Kyoto University recently.
Honjo is sharing the award with James P. Allison, an immunology professor at the University of Texas. They will share a cash prize of NT$40 million (US$1.33 million) and will each receive a medal and a certificate.
Allison and Honjo were honored for the discoveries of cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) as immune inhibitory molecules that led to their applications in cancer immunotherapy.
Honjo has received many awards and honors, including Japan's Order of Culture in 2013, the Robert Koch Prize in 2012 and the Imperial Prize of the Japan Academy in 1996.
Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway, won the prize in sustainable development; Chinese American historian Yu Ying-shih won the prize in Sinology; and Albie Sachs, a former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, was named the winner of the prize for rule of law.
All of the laureates will give lectures on their life's work during Tang Prize Week from Sept. 15 to 21, according to the foundation.
Tang Prize Week will also feature a banquet for the laureates at the Grand Hotel in Taipei, a concert by the Taiwan Philharmonic, and two exhibitions.
(By Lo Kuang-jen, James Lee, Christie Chen and Kuo Chung-han)
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