Editor of new book highlighting achievements of China’s Nobel and Lasker award winners hopes stories will inspire young
- Professor Laurence Chan, who teaches at the University of Colorado, co-wrote book about Chinese triumphs in science and literature
An editor of a book recording the achievements of prize-winning Chinese scientists and writers hopes their stories inspire more young people to excel in the fields.
Professor Laurence Chan Kwong-fai, one of the six editors of Nobel and Lasker Laureates of Chinese Descent In Literature and Science, also called on the Chinese and Hong Kong governments to increase spending on research and development.
The Nobel Prize is given out each year in chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, literature, peace and economics. The Lasker Awards programme was created in 1945 by Albert and Mary Lasker to shine a spotlight on fundamental biological discoveries and clinical advances.
Chan said Japan had produced 23 winners of the Nobel Prize for science, while another three were laureates in literature. In comparison, nine of China’s 11 Nobel laureates were honoured in the fields of science, with the other two winning prizes for literature.
Tu Youyou, a mainland Chinese chemist and winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, is the only Chinese scientist working in China to have won the award.