China’s 2017 Future Science Prize winners announced

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China’s Future Science Prize on Saturday announced winners for 2017 in the areas of life science, physical science, and mathematics and computer science.

The winners are Shi Yigong, Pan Jianwei and Xu Chenyang respectively. Each winner will be awarded 1 million US dollars.

Shi is a Chinese biophysicist in the field of protein X-ray crystallography, and Dean of School of Life Sciences of Tsinghua University. He was awarded for his study of high-resolution structures of the eukaryotic spliceosome.

Pan is a Chinese physicist at the University of Science and Technology of China. He was awarded for his innovation of quantum optical technology which enables practical implementation of secure communication through quantum key distribution. He was the lead researcher of the iconic transmission of entangle photons across 1,200 km using Micius Satellite in June this year.

Xu is a Chinese mathematician in algebraic geometry and a professor at Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research. Xu was awarded for his contribution to birational algebraic geometry.

The award ceremony of the Future Science Prize will be held at China World Hotel on October 29, 2017.

The Future Science Prize is a non-governmental award established in 2016 by scientists and business owners in China. The prizes are instituted to reward scientists who make outstanding scientific contributions in Greater China. Winners are not limited to Chinese nationals.

When it was first established last year, the Mathematics and Computer Science Prize was left out. Winners of the other two prizes, Life Science Prize and Physical Science Prize were Dennis Lo, a professor of chemical pathology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Xue Qikun, a physicist at Tsinghua University.

(Top photo: From left are 2017 Future Science Prize winners Shi Yigong, Pan Jianwei and Xu Chenyang.)