Zhen-Yi Wang and Zhu Chen Win 2012 Szent-Györgyi Prize

The National Foundation for Cancer Research held its annual dinner last night to award the Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research to Zhen-Yi Wang and Zhu Chen. Both Wang and Chen are professors at the School of Medicine Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Chen also serves as China's health minister. Wang and Chen, who was Wang's student, found that the combination of all-trans retinoic acid — a modern medicine — and arsenic trioxide — a traditional Chinese medicine — could treat acute promyelocytic leukemia. Five-year, disease-free survival improved to about 95 percent for the patients treated with this therapy. It's a "story of East meets West," Chen said at the dinner, referring to the two parts of the treatment. The keynote speaker, OriGene's Wei-Wu, added that cancer is neither a Western disease nor a Chinese disease; it affects everyone.