2021 Gairdner Global Health Award winners: Pei Weiss (left) and Guan Yi, sourced from gairdner.org/
According to the Canadian Gairdner Award official website in April The news announced on the afternoon of the 7th, Chair Professor of Hong Kong University, Director of Shantou University-Hong Kong University Joint Institute of Virology, Medical Microbiology Expert Guan Yi and Chair Professor of Hong Kong University, Clinical Public Health Virologist Joseph Sriyal Malik Peiris won the 2021 John Dicks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award. The reason for the award is that they have "in-depth understanding of emerging infectious diseases across Asia, especially zoonotic influenza and severe The source of the outbreak of acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and its major contributions to epidemic prevention and control."
author | Wang Yudan
Zebian | Chenxiao Xue
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Guan Yi.Source: gairdner.org
Guan Yi, born in Ningdu, Jiangxi in 1962, both undergraduate and graduate students are in clinical medicine, and later engaged in influenza and other emerging infectious diseases research. Currently The University of Hong Kong Li Ka-shing School of Medicine Chair Professor of Emerging Toxic Diseases and Professor of the Yu Chongguang Foundation (Virology) , Director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases, University of Hong Kong, Shantou University· Director of the Joint Institute of Virology of the University of Hong Kong, Director of the Guangdong-Hong Kong Joint Laboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases, and Co-director of the Span9span World Health Organization H5 Reference Laboratory.
He was the first to discover that civet cats and other wild animals on the market are the main vector of SARS coronavirus and the direct source of human infection, and it is also the direct source of human infections in avian flu, swine flu, and Middle East respiratory syndrome span10span (MERS) has made significant achievements in traceability, evolution, and epidemic prevention and control.
Joseph Sriyal Malik Peiris. Source: gairdner.org
Pei Weiss was born in Sri Lanka in 1949. He mainly studies the prevention and control and pathogenesis of new emerging viruses such as coronavirus between animals and humans . He is currently the Chair Professor of Virology in the School of Public Health, Li Ka-shing School of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, and Professor of the Tan Huazheng Foundation (Medical Science) , and Co-Director of the World Health Organization H5 Reference Laboratory.
01 Years of intensive research and prevention of infectious diseases
Guan Yi once said, “A race against the virus can save a lot of lives if you win it, and it may be a pandemic. In a major outbreak, tens of millions of people may die as a result."
From 1997 Hong Kong avian influenza , 2002-2005 Southeast Asian H5N1, 2005 Qinghai Lake migratory bird flu , SARS in 2003-2004, swine flu in 2009, MERS since 2012, and H7N9 and H10N8 infections in 2013... In the twenty or thirty years of dealing with viruses and microorganisms, Guan Yi and Pei Weiss have been involved in flu and The field of coronavirus has been intensively cultivated and contributed a lot.
In 1997, the H5N1 avian flu broke out in Hong Kong, and one third of the infected people lost their precious lives. After the outbreak, Guan Yi, who was researching his doctoral dissertation in the United States, quickly returned to Hong Kong and cooperated with Pei Weiss to start research on the H5N1 avian influenza virus at the University of Hong Kong.
In order to clarify the emergence, evolution and pathogenicity of the H5N1 virus, they went to the live poultry market to conduct field investigations. A week later, they successfully isolated and identified a new type of H5N1 avian influenza virus. Prevention and control strategies such as regularly closing live poultry markets, cleaning up the same day, and preventing live poultry in the market from staying overnight have been implemented.
According to the official website of the Geldner Prize,Guan Yi and Pei Weiss made significant contributions to clarifying the emergence, spread, epidemiology and pathogenesis of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (including H5N1, H9N2, H6N1, H7N9, H5Nx, etc.) , and controlled it in Asia Avian influenza virus work provides evidence-based methods.
The SARS outbreak occurred in China in 2003 ("SARS") . The Pei Weiss team was the first to identify the coronavirus that causes SARS and clarified its pathogenesis and transmission methods, and timely developed diagnostic test methods and shared them with the international community. At the same time, Guan Yi’s team clarified the source of human infection with SARS and the interface between human and animal infections in the Guangdong wild animal market. This discovery accelerated the pace of the Guangdong government’s closure of the wild animal market and avoided SARS outbreaks in 2004.
In 2015, Guan Yi team also took the lead in identifying Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) provided the source of human infection in Saudi Arabia with unimodal An important basis.
"Guan Yi and Pei Weiss have established complete and comprehensive methods and strategies in virus monitoring, human infection traceability, in-depth investigation, diagnosis and control of emerging infectious diseases. These methods and strategies have been used in pigs in 2009 During the influenza, MERS and 2019 new coronavirus pandemic, they continued to provide extremely important guidance and help to Asia and the rest of the world.” Regarding the influence of Guan Yi and Pei Weiss’ work, the Geldner Prize official website said.
02 Won this award "deservedly"
Over the years,Guan Yi and Pei Weiss have been committed to the research of emerging infectious diseases, and have made important breakthroughs in a variety of major emerging diseases, and have made outstanding contributions to the control of the global spread of the disease. This award is well-deserved. Industry experts also affirmed their awards.
Lu Shan, an international vaccinologist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, said: They are always preparing-Guan Pei and Pei have been doing basic virological research all the year round. When there is an outbreak of a new infectious disease, they can respond promptly with a solid scientific foundation, an excellent experimental team, and their own knowledge.
Jin Dongyan, a virologist and professor at the School of Biomedicine of the University of Hong Kong, told Intellectuals that during the SARS ravages in 2003, Professor Pei Weiss and Professor Span9span and Professor Yuan Guoyong of the Department of Microbiology of the University of Hong Kong jointly discovered the SARS virus And immediately shared with the world at the first time, "This is the key to controlling the epidemic."
In addition, Jin Dongyan introduced that at the beginning of the SARS epidemic, Guan Yi and Professor Zheng Bojian of the Department of Microbiology of the University of Hong Kong went to Guangzhou to establish a cooperative relationship with the mainland academician Zhong Nanshan; Guan Yi and Zheng Bojian and other animals Tracing the source, it was finally determined that , civet cat, etc. were the intermediate hosts of the virus and made important contributions to the prevention and control of the epidemic.
"The two of them deserve the award, which is a reaffirmation of the University of Hong Kong as an important center for global coronavirus research. This is the pride of the country and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.It is worthy of our treasure. Jin Dongyan said.
Upon learning that the two were awarded, Zhang Xiang, President of the University of Hong Kong, said he was happy for them and was proud of the long-term research and world-class contribution of the University of Hong Kong in infectious diseases. Zhang Xiang told the "Intellectuals" that the world-class research of the two scientists has laid the scientific foundation and treatment plan for the solution of infectious diseases including SARS and new coronary pneumonia. The University of Hong Kong has long encouraged and developed basic research, strong scientific research strength and good The academic environment allows scholars to "sink down and concentrate on doing something" with ten years of sharpening the sword.
03 Geldner International Award
Known as the “Little Nobel Prize”, the Dana Prize is awarded to the world’s best biomedical researchers and global health researchers, including the Canadian Galdner International Prize, the Canadian Galdner Whiteman Prize and John There are three awards for the Dicks Canada Galdner Prize for Global Health:
According to statistics, since the first Galdner Prize was awarded in 1959, a total of 403 scientists have won the award, of which 102 The winner won the Nobel Prize.
A total of 7 people won the Galdner Prize in 2021. In addition to Guan Yi and Pei Weiss, two scientists won the John Dicks Canada Gelder Global Health Prize In addition, the Galdner International Award was awarded to Mary-Claire King (Mary-Claire King) , Daniel Drucker (Daniel J. Drucker) , Joe Harbanna (Joel Francis Hagener) and Jens Juul Holst (Jens Juul Holst) ,The Geldner Whiteman Award went to Elizabeth Eisenhauer (Elizabeth Eisenhauer) .
Galdner International Award winners
25. Professor of University Department of Medicine and Genomics.
Reasons for winning the award : Discover the mechanism of breast cancer susceptibility caused by the inheritance of BRCA1 gene mutations, thereby changing cancer genetics and oncology (Story of Mary Claire King) For details, please refer to the "Intellectual" historical article: Breast Cancer Gene Discoverer: When I was abandoned by my husband, he gave me a vacuum cleaner) .
Daniel Drucker (Daniel J. Drucker),Professor of Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Canada; (Joel Francis Hagener), Professor of Harvard Medical School; (Jens Juul Holst) ), Professor of Department of Biomedicine, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Reasons for the award: recognizes their research on glucagon-like peptides, which have led to significant progress in the treatment of type 2 diabetes, obesity and bowel diseases.
盖尔德纳怀特曼 Award
Elizabeth Eisenhauer (Elizabeth Eisenhauer), Queen's University, Canada tumor And Professor Emeritus of the Department of Medicine.
Reasons for winning : commend her for researching new cancer drugs and drug delivery methods,Leading changes in cancer clinical trials and establishing new cancer treatment standards that affect patients around the world.
References:
https://gairdner.org/2021-canada-gairdner-awards-recognize-gairdner-awards-recognize-gairdner-aware-transowned-retribution-world-owned-retribution -impacting-human-health/
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