Chinese-French team celebrates ‘borderless connections’ at Shaw Prize ceremony

The Chinese and French winners of the 2026 Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine have highlighted the spirit of “borderless connections” and friendship behind their research – which turned a rare form of leukaemia from deadly to widely curable.

At an awards ceremony at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on Tuesday attended by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, the life scientists celebrated their breakthrough as an “East meets West” success story and called for collaboration to solve global issues.

Announced earlier this year, the winning team comprised French molecular biologist Anne Dejean, professor emerita at the Institut Pasteur, a biomedical research centre in Paris; French doctor and researcher Hugues de The, professor and chair of cellular and molecular oncology at the College de France and Hospital Saint Louis in Paris; and haematologist Zhu Chen, professor at Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.