From World-Class Breakthroughs to Public Innovation, Taiwan’s Tang Prize Opens the Door to Its Next Era of Global Engagement

The Tang Prize Education Foundation officially launched the 2026 Tang Prize Week and opened the Tang Prize Glory Exhibition today during a press conference held at the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. The event formally unveils the program for the upcoming Tang Prize Week, celebrating global academic excellence and showcasing world-class contributions across Sustainable Development, Biopharmaceutical Science, Sinology, and Rule of Law.

Opening the ceremony, Foundation CEO Chern Jenn-Chuan reflected on the history and founding principles of the award. Chern noted that mid-September marks the first Tang Prize Week following the passing of founder Samuel Yin. Moving forward, the Foundation will continuously uphold Yin’s founding vision to encourage global innovation, honor scientific achievements, and guide sustainable development to make the world a better place.

Breakthroughs in Precision Oncology: Awakening the Immune System

Cancer has long remained a leading cause of mortality worldwide, with incidence rates climbing alongside an aging global population. Historically, early chemotherapy acted as a double-edged sword, causing severe systemic toxicity while destroying malignant cells. The subsequent advent of gene sequencing fueled targeted therapy, which reduced side effects and provided short-term disease control, but ultimately faced severe limitations due to drug resistance and restricted overall survival gains.

While the human immune system’s T cells serve as the primary defense mechanism to identify and eliminate abnormal cells, tumors evade destruction by downregulating surface antigens or activating immune checkpoints. Within the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, persistent inhibitory signals induce T cell exhaustion, leaving the body defenseless. To overcome this barrier, the scientific community pioneered a revolutionary paradigm known as cell-based immunotherapy.

Laying the Foundation for Adoptive Cell Therapy

Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg, widely recognized as a pioneer of cancer immunotherapy, began his investigation into T cell treatments in the 1970s. He established the clinical model for adoptive cell therapy, demonstrating that naturally occurring tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, or TILs, could be isolated from tumor tissue, expanded to large scales in specialized culture laboratories, and re-infused into patients to induce the regression of solid tumors. Dr. Rosenberg also achieved a historic genetic milestone by becoming the first scientist to successfully insert foreign genes into human cells, creating the foundational framework for modern genetic engineering in cell therapy. His TIL therapy achieved accelerated US FDA approval for treating advanced, unresectable or metastatic melanoma, further confirming the irreplaceable efficacy of T cells in solid tumor oncology.

Architecting Synthetic Immunity: Chimeric Antigen Receptors

Building upon adoptive cell transfer, Dr. Michel Sadelain functioned as the founding architect of CAR-T therapy by pioneering the genetic engineering of human T cells. Dr. Sadelain designed synthetic chimeric antigen receptors, known as CARs, that equip T cells with targeted detection capabilities to locate and destroy cancer cells. To resolve the limited survival and proliferation of first generation CARs, he integrated the CD28 costimulatory domain into the receptor architecture, creating second generation CARs that allow modified T cells to rapidly proliferate and persist long term within the patient. Furthermore, his team established CD19 as the primary target for B cell malignancies and demonstrated remarkable clinical efficacy in adult relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia, laying the groundwork for living cell engineering.

Scaling Living Drugs for Global Mass Manufacturing

Translating synthetic cell therapy from experimental laboratories to commercial mass production required the engineering breakthroughs of Dr. Carl H. June. Dr. June’s research team elucidated the key second signals required for complete T cell activation, establishing standard costimulatory design principles across modern CAR-T therapies. To bypass the technical bottlenecks of ex vivo cell manufacturing, Dr. June developed bead-based T cell expansion technology, establishing the global standard for cellular manufacturing. By integrating the 4-1BB (CD137) costimulatory domain into the receptor design, he significantly enhanced T cell persistence and cytotoxic power in vivo. These breakthroughs directly led to the first US FDA approval of a genetically modified CAR-T therapy in 2017, unlocking unprecedented therapeutic potential.

Unlike conventional pharmaceuticals that clear the body after metabolism, CAR-T cell therapy operates as a living drug. Peripheral blood immune cells are extracted, genetically reprogrammed with CARs, and re-infused into the patient, where they continuously proliferate, circulate, and patrol the body like an active immune memory. Clinical applications in hematologic malignancies demonstrate success rates between 80 percent and 90 percent, with over 35,000 cancer patients worldwide receiving treatment to date.

Expanding Horizons: Autoimmune Diseases and Beyond

As scientists deepen their understanding of T cell receptors and the tumor microenvironment, CAR technology is rapidly expanding beyond oncology through platform scalability and high specificity. Current research focuses on developing programmable T cells capable of overcoming complex immunosuppressive mechanisms in solid tumors. Furthermore, emerging clinical investigations highlight the efficacy of CAR-T and CAR-NK platforms in treating severe autoimmune diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus and systemic sclerosis, with future applications extending toward cardiac repair and cellular senescence.

Author

Michelle Jessica