AMONG the four scientists who won the 2024 Shaw Prize is a Malaysian haematologist and alumna of Universiti of Malaya (UM). Dr Swee Lay Thien of the National Institutes of Health, United States and Dr Stuart Orkin from the Harvard Medical School were awarded the prize in equal shares for the Life Science and Medicine category.
Both Swee and Orkin won the award for their discovery of the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying the foetal-to-adult haemoglobin switch that facilitated treatment for devastating blood diseases affecting millions of people worldwide.
The Kuala Lumpur-born Swee studied medicine in both Malaysia and the United Kingdom. She graduated from UM in 1976 before specialising in haematology at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and the Royal Free Hospital. She then moved to Oxford where she served at the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) Molecular Haematology Unit in the Weatherall Institute for Molecular Medicine and the John Radcliffe Hospital.[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”block” ihc_mb_who=”unreg” ihc_mb_template=”3″ ]
Swee held various positions at Oxford, including MRC Clinical Training Position as well as a senior fellowship and an honorary consultancy.
The Astronomy prize went to Shrinivas R Kulkarni, George Ellery Hale Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology, for his discoveries about millisecond pulsars, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, and other variable or transient astronomical objects.
The Mathematical Sciences prize went to Peter Sarnak, Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, for his development of the arithmetic theory of thin groups and the affine sieve by bringing together number theory, analysis, combinatorics, dynamics, geometry, and spectral theory.
Each prize carries a cash award of 1.2 million U.S. dollars. The award ceremony will be held in Hong Kong on Nov. 12. Established in 2002 in Hong Kong, the Shaw Prize is an international recognition of remarkable scientific achievements. It is administered by the Shaw Prize Foundation and has been awarded annually since 2004.
The Shaw Prize refers to three annual awards presented by the Shaw Prize Foundation in the fields of astronomy, medicine and life sciences, and mathematical sciences.
Established in 2002 in Hong Kong by Hong Kong entertainment mogul and philanthropist Run Run Shaw, the awards honour individuals who are currently active in their respective fields and who have recently achieved distinguished and significant advances, who have made outstanding contributions to academic and scientific research or applications, or who in other domains have achieved excellence. The prize has been described as the “Nobel of the East.”
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