2024 Future Science Prize winners: Deng Hongkui, Zhang Tao, Li Yadong, and Sun Binyong.

On August 16, the list of winners for the 2024 Future Science Prize was announced.

Professor Deng Hongkui, a Boya Chair professor at Peking University, received the “Life Science Prize” for his outstanding work in pioneering the use of chemical methods to reprogram somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells, thereby altering cell fate and status. Zhang Tao from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Li Yadong from Tsinghua University were awarded the “Material Science Prize” for their groundbreaking contributions to the development and application of “single-atom catalysis.” Professor Sun Binyong from the Zhejiang University Institute of Advanced Study in Mathematics received the “Mathematics and Computer Science Prize” for his significant contributions to the representation theory of Lie groups.

The Future Science Prize, established in 2016, focuses on originality in fundamental scientific research. It was initiated by a community of scientists and entrepreneurs to recognize outstanding scientific achievements in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, regardless of nationality. From 2016 to the present, a total of 39 winners have been selected by the Future Science Prize.

The Future Science Prize currently features three main categories: the “Life Science Prize,” the “Material Science Prize,” and the “Mathematics and Computer Science Prize,” each with a monetary award of approximately 7.2 million RMB (equivalent to 1 million USD).

The 2024 Future Science Prize Week will take place from October 30 to November 3 in Hong Kong.

Life Science Prize winner Deng Hongkui: A new method for inducing pluripotent stem cells

Deng Hongkui, born in Beijing in 1963, is a Boya Chair professor at Peking University and the lead scientist at the Changping Laboratory. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995 and subsequently completed his postdoctoral research at New York University.

Deng Hongkui has made pioneering contributions in the field of cell reprogramming.

In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka and his colleagues discovered that fibroblasts could be converted into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) using four transcription factors, marking the beginning of a new era in regenerative medicine. However, the method of overexpressing transcription factors was difficult to control precisely and could lead to random gene integration and potential expression of oncogenes, limiting its application.

Deng Hongkuiwas the first to develop a method of converting fibroblasts into iPSCs using small chemical molecules (chemically induced pluripotent stem cells, or CiPSCs). He demonstrated that CiPSCs could successfully generate fertile mice (2013) and revealed the molecular pathways involved in CiPSC generation (2015, 2018). Deng also successfully established human CiPSC induction techniques (2022a, 2023) and showed that islets derived from human CiPSCs could improve diabetes in non-human primates (2022b), highlighting the significant clinical potential of CiPSCs.

Deng Hongkui's original work has opened new avenues for cell reprogramming, promising to have broad and far-reaching impacts on stem cell research and the advancement of regenerative medicine.

Material Science Prize winners Zhang Tao and Li Yadong: Single-atom catalysis

Zhang Tao, born in 1963 in Shaanxi, China, received his Ph.D. from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1989, where he currently serves as a researcher.

Li Yadong, born in 1964 in Anhui, China, obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1998 and is now a professor at Tsinghua University.

The chemical industry has a significant impact on various aspects of modern society, with catalysis being a cornerstone of today’s chemical industry. Developing efficient catalysts and feasible synthesis methods is one of the most important research goals in chemistry and chemical engineering. Solid-phase metal catalysts, often in the form of nanoparticles, are widely used in industrial production. Since the 1960s, the exploration of catalysts utilizing individual metal atoms dispersed on a support surface as heterogeneous catalytic centers has been reported in the literature, yet this field has not seen substantial development due to a lack of straightforward, feasible, and widely applicable methods for preparing and scientifically characterizing single-atom heterogeneous catalysts.

In 2011, Zhang Tao, Li Jun, and Liu Jingyue reported a single-atom heterogeneous catalyst where platinum (Pt) is embedded as isolated metal single atoms in iron oxide (FeOx). This research established a simple and practical synthesis and characterization method for solid catalysts featuring single-atom platinum as the active catalytic site, showing superior catalytic activity and selectivity. Zhang Tao and his collaborators coined the term “Single-Atom Catalysis (SAC)” for the catalytic functions facilitated by such catalysts. They subsequently demonstrated that “single-atom catalysis” could extend to various metals, supports, and catalytic reactions. This landmark original study initiated an explosive development in the field of “single-atom catalysis,” rapidly evolving into a vibrant area of emerging catalytic research.

Li Yadong and his collaborators systematically developed a synthetic approach for designing, controlling, and creating universal single-atom catalysts. These methods provide single-atom catalysts with determined morphology and coordination environment. They facilitated the large-scale synthesis of single-atom catalysts with high loadings of metal centers and homogeneous microstructures, laying the groundwork for the application of such catalysts in industrial production. These approaches have been widely used for synthesizing catalysts with various functionalities, thereby advancing the development of single-atom catalysis across chemical, material, energy, and environmental fields, significantly increasing its impact.

The pioneering work of Zhang Tao and Li Yadong has opened up new avenues for understanding the active sites of heterogeneous metal catalysts and provided effective means for controlling solid-phase catalysts with atomic precision. Their research in single-atom catalysis has become a leading edge in heterogeneous catalysis. Their findings have enabled the green, efficient, and energy-saving industrial production of bulk chemicals such as vinyl chloride, acetic acid, and propanol, demonstrating the potential of single-atom catalysis to contribute to the sustainable development of human society.

Mathematics and Computer Science Prize winner Sun Binyong: Representation theory of Lie groups

Sun Binyong, born in 1976 in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province, China, earned his Ph.D. from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2004. He has worked at the Institute of Mathematics and Systems Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for many years and is currently a professor at the Zhejiang University Institute of Advanced Study in Mathematics.

Sun Binyong has achieved significant accomplishments in the field of Lie group representation theory, particularly related to typical group irreducibility theorems, θ-correspondences, and the non-zero hypothesis in Rankin-Selberg convolution.

Lie group representation theory is one of the foundations of modern mathematics. It originated in physics and forms the basis of the Langlands program, playing a crucial role in key advancements in number theory, including the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

Sun Binyong's first contribution involved establishing the irreducibility property of typical Lie group representations. In the compact case, this problem was initially studied by E. Cartan and H. Weyl. Sun Binyong, along with his collaborator Zhu Chengbo, extended it to non-compact cases, relating it to the study of invariant distributions. Their innovative approach resolved a long-standing conjecture, laying the theoretical foundation for the relative representation theory of typical Lie groups and providing significant evidence for the fundamental conjecture of Gan-Gross-Prasad.

His second major contribution lies in θ-correspondence theory, which is one of the essential methods for studying automorphic forms between different groups. Sun Binyong and Zhu Chengbo proved detailed results regarding the first non-zero θ-lifts in certain towers, a conjecture proposed by Kudla and Rallis in the 1990s, significantly promoting development in this field.

Sun Binyong's third important achievement was proving that the period integrals of the cohomology test vectors in the Rankin-Selberg convolution are non-zero. This result was initially suggested by Kazhdan and Mazur in the 1970s; Sun Binyong meticulously investigated it, proving its non-zero nature and conducting specific calculations, solving a long-standing issue in the domain.