Laureates of the 2021 Future Science Prize, dubbed the “Chinese Nobel,” were announced 2021 on Sun. Kwok-Yung Yuen and Joseph Sriyal Malik Peiris won the prizes in life sciences for their major discoveries on SARS virus and its impact on studying COVID-19.
Yuen Kwok-yung, Chair Professor of the Department of Microbiology, University of Hong Kong, and Malik Peiris, Chair Professor of Virology at the School of Public Health, Hong Kong University, won the “Prize – Life Sciences” and received a US$1 million prize.
Both of them discovered that the coronavirus (SARS-COV-1) was the source of the global severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, and the chain of transmission from animals to humans. They helped humans deal with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome ( MERS) and the infectious disease caused by the new coronavirus. They were therefore awarded for their contributions.
Malik Peiris is a Sri Lankan pathologist and virologist. He has been long based in Hong Kong. His research interests include ecology, evolution, pathogenesis, epidemiology of animal-human influenza and other human respiratory viral infections, authoring over 320 research publications.
🇱🇰 Professor Malik Peiris, together with Prof. Yuen Kwok-yung have won the 2021 Future Science Prize and $ 1 million for their studies on SARS and MERS.
The Future Science Prize is established by private fund in 2016 to promote scientific breakthroughs and innovations in China. pic.twitter.com/dYSinsv8qS
— Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka (@ChinaEmbSL) September 12, 2021