A Taiwanese professor in molecular medicine won a grant from the breast cancer research program of the US Department of Defense, making him the first scientist in East Asia ever to obtain funding of this kind, academic sources said Wednesday.
Chang Nan-shan (張南山) of the Institute of Molecular Medicine at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) Medical College in Tainan City won the grant for his research on zfra, a zinc finger-like peptide that regulates programmed cell deaths, a NCKU news release said.
grant
It is difficult for a foreign scientist living outside the US to gain the Pentagon Breast Cancer Research Program Concept Award, which only five in 1,000 applicants have a chance of winning.
The news release said the number of recipients of Pentagon research funding dropped from 557 around the world in 2000 to 105 last year, and further to 90 this year, because of the decline in US national research budgets.
Chang, who holds a doctoral degree in immunology from the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, worked at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, the Guthrie Research Institute in Pennsylvania and Upstate Medical University in Syracuse before he was invited in 2006 to lecture at NCKU.
Research
His research has focused on how cancer cells evade immune attacks and prevent induced suicide.
To understand how cancer cells develop resistance to tumor necrosis factor (TNF), Chang’s research group has utilized functional cloning and microarray approaches to isolate genes, which may regulate cancer cell sensitivity to toxic cytokines.
His research group’s discovery of a tumor suppressor WOX1 (also named WWOX or FOR), which enhances TNF function and is apparently involved in embryonic cell differentiation and cancer pathogen, has attracted the attention of cancer researchers from Britain, the US, Sweden, Belgium, Italy and Australia, the NCKU said.
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
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