A deadly crash on Freeway No. 6 in Nantou County on Monday has dealt a blow to important research into a brain cancer vaccine after a genetics expert and a medical technologist were killed in the accident.
The medical research department of the Taichung City-based China Medical University Hospital was in mourning yesterday after 70-year-old researcher Yang Hsu Teng-mei (楊許登美), who was involved in a brain cancer vaccine development project at the hospital, was killed when the sport utility vehicle (SUV) in which she was traveling was hit by a gravel truck.
Shih Hung-chang (施汯章), a 46-year-old assistant professor at the university and a medical technologist at the hospital’s Medical Research Department, also died.
Yang Hsu was the wife of Yang Wen-kuan (楊文光), director of the hospital’s Cell/Gene Therapy Research Laboratory, who was also in the car but suffered only minor injuries.
VACCINE
Hospital president Cho Der-yang (周德陽) said Yang Wen-kuan had been working on the brain cancer vaccine for almost five years and was close to success.
His wife had been his main research partner and was in charge of the challenging process of cultivating cells.
Reports yesterday said that the accident had hit genetic research at the hospital hard. They said Yang was the first person in the world to achieve success creating a technique to separate ribonucleic acid, or RNA, from mammal cells.
TRUCK DRIVER
The accident occurred when a truck driver lost control while traveling north from Puli (埔里) to Caotun (草屯) and hit a sedan before jumping the barrier into the southbound lane and hitting the SUV.
The SUV driver, Tsai Yung-sung (蔡永松), was also killed.
Chang Chien-kuo (張建國), a vice president at the hospital, and his wife Lu Chiu-yen (呂秋燕), who were also in the SUV, were injured.
The truck driver and the sedan driver suffered slight injuries.
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