A research team composed of Taiwanese and French academics has won this yearㄙs Taiwan-France Science and Technology Award for their study on how to prevent proliferation of glial cells, or how to balance brain cell numbers, the National Science Council (NSC) announced on Wednesday.
The Taiwanese researchers, headed by Chien Cheng-ting (瞂??), a research fellow and professor at Academia Sinicaㄙs Institute of Molecular Biology, were responsible for the study on Gcm (glial cell missing) protein degradation, while the French researchers, headed by Angela Giangrande, focused on studying glial progenitors.
↗Our research aims to study how to prevent abnormal proliferation of glial cells, a development that could lead to the growth of glioblastoma, a type of tumor cell,∫ Chien said.
Therefore, he added, it is very important to precisely control glial cell movement and numbers to understand the correlation between glial cell division and proliferation.
Through cooperation with France in this field, Chien said, Taiwan will be able to cooperate with EU academic institutions in cancer-related research in the future.
The Taiwan-France Science and Technology Award, now in its 10th year, was jointly created by Taiwanㄙs National Science Council (NSC) and the National Academy of Sciences of the Institute of France to honor ?outstanding Taiwanese and French scientists.
Speaking at a ceremony to mark the opening of an exhibition of the accomplishments of Taiwan-France scientific cooperation in the past decade, NSC Vice Chairman Chen Cheng-hung (騛??) said cooperation between the two countries is now focused on medicine, agriculture and life science.
In the next stage, he said that cooperation would be extended to environmental sciences, including mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics and materials science.
↗Bilateral cooperation has entered a thematic research collaboration stage and will move toward joint operation of research laboratories,∫ Chen said.
Michel Lu (??疘), Taiwanㄙs representative to France, said that besides the US, France is now Taiwanㄙs most important scientific research partner.
↗The two countries have signed 11 cooperative agreements covering 56 programs,∫ Lu said, adding that Taiwan is also conducting 165 cooperative research projects with various French universities.
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