The Future Science Prize committee announces the laureates of 2024 on August 16^th. Hongkui Deng receives the Future Science Prize in life sciences for his pioneering work on using small molecules to change cell fate and state, in particular to reprogram somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells. Tao Zhang and Yadong Li receives the Future Science Prize in physical sciences for their  seminal contributions to the development and application of Single-Atom Catalysis. Binyong Sun receives the Future Science Prize in mathematics and computer science, for his remarkable contributions to the representation theory of Lie groups.

2024 Future Science Prize - Life Science Prize Laureate

Hongkui Deng

Peking University

Changping Laboratory

Citation:

For his pioneering work on using small molecules to change cell fate and state, in particular to reprogram somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells.

Hongkui Deng has made seminal contributions in cell fate reprogramming. In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka and colleagues discovered that forced expression of transcriptional factors can convert fibroblasts into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The ability to produce and engineer patient-derived iPSCs marked a new era of regenerative medicine. Still, the application of transcriptional factor-based reprogramming is limited due to potential random transgene integrations, and expression of oncogenes. 

Hongkui Deng pioneered an approach of using small molecules to convert fibroblasts into iPSCs (termed CiPSCs, for chemically induced pluripotent stem cells). He showed that CiPSCs are germline-competent and can be used to successfully produce mice (2013), and revealed the underlying molecular pathways leading to CiPSC generation (2015, 2018). Deng also succeeded in generating human CiPSCs and demonstrated that human CiPSC-derived islets can ameliorate diabetes in non-human primates, showcasing the great clinical potential of hCiPSCs (2022a, 2022b, 2023) .

Deng's seminal and transformative work has opened a new route for cellular reprogramming, with broad and long-term impact on stem cell research and regenerative medicine.

Hongkui Deng, born in 1963 in Beijing, China. PhD: 1995 from University of California, Los Angeles. Current position: Boya Chair Professor of Peking University and Leading Scientist of Changping Laboratory, China.

References:

2024 Future Science Prize - Physical Science Prize Laureates

Tao Zhang, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Yadong Li, Tsinghua University

Citation: 

For their seminal contributions to the development and application of Single-Atom Catalysis.

Catalysis plays a pivotal role in the chemical industry, which is foundational to modern society. Developing efficient catalysts that exhibit desirable activity and are readily accessible remains a crucial endeavor in chemical science and engineering. Metal-based solid catalysts are extensively used across industrial processes, typically in the form of nanoparticles. Motivated by maximizing the utilization efficiency of metal atoms while achieving solid catalysts with well-defined active sites and uniform catalytic modes, researchers have intermittently explored the concept of dispersing metals as individual atoms for catalysis since the 1960s. However, primarily due to the absence of a general, versatile, and robust preparation method and rigorous characterization techniques, this research into solid catalysts comprising individual metal atoms did not yield significant breakthroughs for decades.

In 2011, Tao Zhang, Jun Li and Jingyue Liu reported the synthesis, characterization, and catalytic properties of a single-atom Pt catalyst embedded in an FeOx substrate. This breakthrough established practical methods for the effective synthesis and rigorous characterizations of a solid catalyst with isolated single Pt atoms as the active centers and demonstrated that such catalysts exhibit superior activity and selectivity for CO oxidation. Zhang and his team coined the term “Single-Atom Catalysis (SAC)” and subsequently extended SAC to a variety of metals, supports, and reactions. Zhang's groundbreaking work has since marked a crucial milestone, catalyzing a surge in research efforts aimed at developing SAC for a diverse array of chemical reactions.

Yadong Li and co-workers systematically advanced the deterministic and controlled synthesis of single-atom catalysts with structurally-defined morphology and coordination environment of the metal center. These methods enable the large-scale production of single-atom catalysts with high metal loading and uniform structural features, moving Single-Atom Catalysis one step closer to industrial production. The methods by Li are widely adapted all over the world for the development of single-atom catalysts with desirable activity and selectivity, significantly broadening the scope and bolstering the impact of SAC in chemical transformation, energy conversion, environmental protection, and materials discovery.   

Zhang and Li's seminal contributions to SAC have paved the way for understanding the nature of active sites in supported metal catalysts and controlling the structure of solid catalysts with atomic precision. Their pioneering work has brought SAC to the forefront of heterogeneous catalysis and technology. Furthermore, their innovations have enabled environment-friendly and energy-efficient production of commodity chemicals, such as chloroethylene, acetic acid, and propanol. These advancements highlight how SAC contributes to fostering a sustainable society.

[1] Nat. Chem. 2011, 3, 634-641.

[2] Nat. Rev. Chem., 2018, 2, 65-81.

[3] Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55, 10800 –10805.

[4] Chem. Rev. 2020, 120, 11900–11955.

Tao Zhang, born in 1963 in Shaanxi, China and earned his Ph.D. in 1989 from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences. He held a prominent position as a professor in DICP.

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

2024 Future Science Prize - Mathematics and Computer Science Prize Laureate

Binyong Sun

Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics, Zhejiang University

Citation:

For his remarkable contributions to the representation theory of Lie groups.

Binyong Sun has made significant contributions to the representation theory of Lie groups, focusing particularly on the multiplicity one theorems for classical groups, the theory of theta correspondence, and the non-vanishing hypothesis in Rankin-Selberg convolutions.

The representation theory of Lie groups is foundational in modern mathematics. It originated from physics and is pivotal in the Langlands program, which has advanced numerous areas of number theory, including the proof of Fermat's last theorem.

Sun's first achievement lies in establishing the multiplicity one property for representations of classical Lie groups. Initially tackled by E. Cartan and H. Weyl in the compact case, Sun and his collaborator Chengbo Zhu extended this to the non-compact case. Their innovative approach solved this longstanding conjecture, laying the groundwork for relative representation theory and contributing to fundamental conjectures by Gan-Gross-Prasad.

His second major contribution is the theory of theta correspondences, a crucial method for studying automorphic forms across different groups. Sun and Zhu notably provided rigorous proof of Kudla and Rallis's conjecture regarding the non-vanishing of theta lifts in certain towers, significantly advancing the field.

Sun's third major achievement is the proof of the non-vanishing of period integrals for cohomological test vectors in Rankin-Selberg convolutions. This result, originally proposed by Kazhdan and Mazur in the 1970s, confirms their explicit computation and resolves a long-standing question in archimedean integrals.

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

The Future Science Prize is a privately-funded science award initiated by a group of scientists and entrepreneurs. The Future Science Prize aims to celebrate the accomplishments of scientists who have made extraordinary scientific contributions. The laureates will be awarded for achievements that: 

1. have made significant global impacts;

2. be original with long-term importance, or have passed the test of time; and

3. be completed mainly in the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, or Taiwan. There is no restriction on the nationalities of laureates.

There are three major categories at present, namely the “Life Science Prize”, the “Physical Science Prize”, and the “Mathematics and Computer Science Prize”, with each award of 1 million US dollars respectively.

The Future Science Prize has been awarded to 39 laureates since 2016. All laureates are highly accomplished, widely recognized scientists whose research has made extraordinary impacts in life sciences, physical sciences, chemistry, mathematics, and computer science. 

The 2024 Future Science Prize Week and the Award Ceremony will be held in Hong Kong from 30 October to 3 November. (End)