Two Nobel laureates will render their support to research work to be conducted at the soon-to-be-inaugurated Institute of Innovations and Advanced Studies at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan.
Alan MacDiarmid, a New Zealand-born US chemist who, with two other chemists, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2000, and Aaron Ciechanover from the Israel Institute of Technology, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2004 with two other scientists, are participating in the research to be carried out by the institute to promote innovation and excellence in research, university officials said.
MacDiarmid received the Nobel Prize in 2000 for his co-discovery of conductive polymers. Prior to his discovery, polymers -- more commonly known as plastics -- were accepted to be electrical insulators with limited high-tech applications.
His contributions made possible the use of electrically conductive plastics in many aspects of daily life, ranging from anti-static sheets for electronic devices and flexible flat-panel displays to plastic solar cells.
Ciechanover was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize for his discovery of one of the most important cyclical processes in biochemistry, namely the regulated degradation of protein cells that build up in all plants, animals and human beings.
Ciechanover and the other co-winners of the 2004 Nobel Prize worked for decades on the non-mainstream subject of cell degradation and discovered that a molecule called ubiquitin labeled proteins that were destined to be destroyed, leaving only unlabeled and desirable proteins to be continuously built up.
Seven other world-class scientists, including Harold Weinstock, a fellow of the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, is also expected to render their support to the institute's scientific and technological research.
The institute aims to become a platform to initiate, facilitate and accelerate collaborative research at the highest levels.
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