{"id":2755,"date":"2019-05-29T09:46:31","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T09:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/2019-shaw-prize-honors-scientists-for-their-contribution-in-astronomy-life-sciences-and-mathematics\/"},"modified":"2025-02-19T11:42:21","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T11:42:21","slug":"shaw-prize-2019-honors-scientists-for-their-contribution-in-astronomy-life-sciences-and-mathematics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/shaw-prize-2019-honors-scientists-for-their-contribution-in-astronomy-life-sciences-and-mathematics","title":{"rendered":"2019 Shaw Prize honors scientists for their contribution in astronomy, life sciences, and mathematics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Shaw Prize Foundation based in Hong Kong announced<\/a> the winners of the 2019 Shaw Prize on May 21. The prestigious award, widely regarded as the\u00a0“Nobel of the East,” honors scientists who have made significant contributions to the field of astronomy, life sciences and medicine, and mathematical sciences. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Let us take a look at the winners of this year\u2019s Shaw Prize:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Astronomy<\/u><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Edward Stone<\/b>, an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena was awarded<\/a> the prize in astronomy for his contribution in the Voyager mission initiated by NASA. The twin Voyager spacecrafts, launched in 1977, transformed scientists\u2019 knowledge about Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The spacecrafts crossed the heliosphere\u2014the area of the space where the sun has significant influence\u2014in 2012 and 2018, becoming the first objects from Earth to do so.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0“This is a tremendous honor,” Stone told NASA<\/a>, and added that it is “a tribute to the teams who designed, developed, launched and operated Voyager on an inspiring journey of more than four decades.” <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Life science and medicine<\/u><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Shaw Prize in life science and medicine was awarded to Maria Jasin<\/b>, a molecular biologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, for her research \u201cshowing that localized double strand breaks in DNA stimulate\u00a0recombination in mammalian cells<\/a>.\u201d Jasin\u2019s work led to the development of gene editing tools like the CRISPR\u2013Cas9 system. Applauding Jasin\u2019s contribution, Professor Chan Wai-yee, a Shaw Prize council member, noted that her work has huge implications in finding the treatment of hereditary diseases and can help to \u201clook at some markers for cancers, and eventually ways of curing and preventing cancer<\/a>.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Mathematical sciences<\/u><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The mathematical sciences prize was conferred upon Michel Talagrand<\/b>, a mathematician at the French national research agency CNRS in Paris. Talagrand\u2019s work in probability theory and stochastic processes, as well as \u2018spin glasses,\u2019 which are materials in which atomic spins are not aligned but rather scattered in random arrangements, won him the honor. \u201cTalagrand is a true one-off, nearly always working on his own, and obtaining extraordinary and highly unexpected results that have changed the mathematical landscape<\/a>,\u201d read the Shaw Prize press release.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Shaw Prize, established by the late Run Run Shaw, a Hong Kong-based philanthropist and popular media personality, was first awarded in the year 2004. The recipients of the award will each receive US$1.2 million as the prize money. The prizes will be presented to the laureates on September 25, 2019, in a ceremony in Hong Kong.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Congratulations to all the winners!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Related reading:<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n