Chinese-French team celebrates ‘borderless connections’ at Shaw Prize ceremony

The Chinese and French winners of the 2026 Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine have highlighted the spirit of “borderless connections” and friendship behind their research – which turned a rare form of leukaemia from deadly to widely curable.

At an awards ceremony at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on Tuesday attended by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, the life scientists celebrated their breakthrough as an “East meets West” success story and called for collaboration to solve global issues.

Announced earlier this year, the winning team comprised French molecular biologist Anne Dejean, professor emerita at the Institut Pasteur, a biomedical research centre in Paris; French doctor and researcher Hugues de The, professor and chair of cellular and molecular oncology at the College de France and Hospital Saint Louis in Paris; and haematologist Zhu Chen, professor at Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.

The trio were recognised for their discovery of the molecular and cellular bases of acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL), a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer, and for pioneering a synergistic, targeted therapy that greatly reduced the mortality of the disease.

In his acceptance speech, Chen said the successful battle against APL is a story of “East meets West”.

“In the realm of science, there is no room for prejudice and division; there is only our shared pursuit of truth,” he added.

“It is this borderless connection that empowers us to join forces in decoding the mystery of life and conquering the challenging disease, bringing us closer to a healthier future.”

Professor De The said that the APL study was “profoundly international” and illustrated the power of scientific collaboration.

“The 30-plus years of partnership with my colleague and friend Chen Zhu have been truly remarkable,” he said, adding that the collaboration between their hospitals was a “successful one embedded in confidence, respect and continuity”.

In his opening address, Lee congratulated all seven Shaw Prize laureates and noted that the prize’s emphasis on curiosity, rigour and the spirit of discovery aligned with Hong Kong’s vision for developing a university town in the Northern Metropolis.

“The government believes in a future centred on science,” he added.

In her acceptance speech, Professor Dejean said the APL research was built on a continuous cooperation and friendship between France and China, recounting her first visit to Shanghai more than 40 years ago.

“Today, this spirit of exchange matters more than ever,” she said. “Many issues we face now are global and will only be solved by talking to each other.”

Quoting the words of Claude Bernard, a French physiologist of the 19th century, she added: “Art is me, science is we.”

The Shaw Prize was established in 2004 by the late entertainment mogul Run Run Shaw and has been awarded each year since for outstanding contributions in astronomy, life science and medicine, and mathematical sciences.

Each prize consists of a medal, a certificate and a US$1.2 million award.

This year’s astronomy prize was shared by emeritus professor and visiting senior scientist Kenichi Nomoto of the University of Tokyo and Professor Stanford Woosley of the University of California, Santa Cruz, for their studies of stellar explosions and the origins of the elements.

The mathematical sciences prize was shared by Emmanuel Candes of Stanford University and Camillo De Lellis of the Institute for Advanced Study in the United States.

They were awarded for their breakthrough contributions to the use of techniques from mathematical analysis to applied problems in information theory, signal processing and statistics, and the study of singularities in geometric measure theory and fluid dynamics.