A National Innovation Award for academic achievement was presented to a medical researcher on Thursday for his achievements in creating an anticancer agent and spraying device that promises to help fight lung cancer.
Chen Hueih-min (陳惠民), a researcher with the National Applied Research Laboratories’ National Nano Device Laboratory, created a novel anticancer peptide called CB1a using a natural antimicrobial peptide, cecropin B, as a template.
Chen then devised a sprayer that compresses a liquid CB1a solution into small particles that are sprayed deep into the lungs to achieve the most effective treatment.
Current cancer treatments have more complicated screening procedures and stronger side effects than the newly developed method, Chen said, adding that his agent has relatively few side effects.
The agent has passed toxicology tests and has registered patents in Taiwan and the US.
Chen is also preparing to apply for a patent for the sprayer he created, which can be used as a delivery method for other drugs.
Preclinical trials for CB1a will be completed once it passes toxicology tests that adhere to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Principles of Good Laboratory Practice, Chen said.
He estimated a NT$3 billion (US$100 million) market for the drug after the completion of its preclinical trials.
The National Innovation Awards, presented by the Taiwan-based Institute for Biotechnology and Medicine Industry, also bestowed a corporate award on General Biologicals Corp, which specializes in liver disease diagnostic devices, for devising a noninvasive technology to detect liver fibrosis.
The technology is able to assess the extent of liver fibrosis through blood sampling and can be used to detect the conditions of patients with hepatitis B, hepatitis C, alcoholic liver disease and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
The technology is unique and allows patients to avoid painful liver biopsies while providing doctors with highly precise diagnostic results at the same time, the corporation said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching