The Ministry of Education announced the recipients of the 16^th National Professorship and the 56^th National Academic Award. For their exceptional achievements, two NTHU professors were awarded with the National Professorship: Prof. Sue-Lein Wang of the Department of Chemistry, and Prof. Bor-Sen Chen of Electrical Engineering. In addition, Prof. Hsing-Wen Sung from the Department of Chemical Engineering also received the 56^th National Academic Award.

Prof. Sue-Lein Wang specializes in crystallography and solid-state inorganic structural chemistry with a focus on porous and fluorescent materials. During her 26 years at NTHU, she has established a state-of-the-art laboratory for the synthesis of crystal-form nanoporous materials. Prof. Wang's research team uses the hydrothermal and solvothermal methods in combination with organic structure-directing agents or templates to synthesize metal phosphates featuring extra-large channel structures. This challenges the limits of pores in the framework of zeolite-like phosphate. Her laboratory has made significant findings in the studies of oxidation state, location/environment of the activation center, gas absorption properties, and the magnetism of transition metals in frameworks.

In recent years, Prof. Wang has also achieved innovative breakthroughs in the field of nanoporous materials. To enhance the international reputation of NTHU, she named her discoveries after NTHU. Each NTHU-n has developed into a canonical crystal-form nanoporous system featuring unique and diverse chemical and structural qualities. These systems have been frequently cited in articles published in top journals and have been included in several important works in the field. In addition to the hydrothermal and solvothermal methods, Prof. Wang has developed the Deep Eutectic Solvent (DES) method, which is a green solvent system for synthesizing nanoporous materials. "Under her leadership, the DES system, and the new findings will have a profound influence on future applications," said President Lih J. Chen.

Prof. Wang's achievement is demonstrated in 275 SCI papers she has published and three patents for lanthanum-free fluorescent powder she has won. Moreover, the latter has the potential for inorganic-organic hybrid nanoporous fluorescent materials to become a new generation of fluorescent powder. This significant breakthrough will have a great impact on the future solid-state LED lighting technology.

Prof. Wang expressed her gratitude for the excellent research environment provided by NTHU and research funding from the National Science Council (NSC); she also thanked the Ministry of Education for the National Professorship Award. Last but not the least, she thanked her research associates and said "my achievement today relied entirely on team effort!"

Prof. Bor-Sen Chen's research expertise is in the field of control and systems, signal processing and communication, and systems biology, as well as in automatic control and signal processing. Prof. Chen has been dedicated to strong control and focused on designing controlling system to accomplish tasks under the conditions of internal perturbations and external disturbances. This design was applied to control the robust cutting forces of lathes and machines tools.

In recent years, Prof. Chen has concentrated his research on bioinformatics and systems biology. He applied systems and control theory to genes and protein networks in systems biology and designed robust biochemical circuits under various types of disturbances. In 2010, his Robust Genetic IC Circuit Design: System Engineering Approach Project was included in the Academic Summit Program of NSC.

Prof. Chen's Genetic Circuit Design Lab will play a vital role in future engineering design in synthetic biology and to promote the use of IC in Taiwanese biological circuit design. "Prof. Bor-Sen Chen has made outstanding achievements in various fields," said President Chen, "over the past 30 years, Prof. Chen has published approximately 200 SCI papers that have been cited approximately 4,000 times."

Prof. Chen believes that the excellent research environment at NTHU allows scholars to fully realize their research abilities and creativity. Although he is at the age of retirement, his love for research remains inexhaustible. "NTHU, keeps up with the good work!" said Prof. Chen.

Prof. Hsing-Wen Sung's researches include biomaterials in drug/gene delivery carriers, cardiac tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, medical devices, and medical imaging. In recent years, he has focused on the development of a nanoscale oral-drug-delivery system for the absorption of proteins, polysaccharides, and nucleic acids. If this clinical application is successful, the technology will benefit numerous patients because the current macromolecular drugs can only be administered through injections. This research was published in 2007 in Biomacromolecules, which attracted attention internationally and was reported by the media in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany.

This oral protein drug delivery system is currently a hot research topic worldwide. Prof. Sung not only has been invited by top academic journals to write review articles but also received 57 patents in the United States, Taiwan, Australia, Canada, and mainland China. Moreover, this technology is transferred from NTHU to the U.S. companies such as: NanoMega Medical Corporation, Novo Nordics (currently the largest insulin pharmaceutical company in the world) and Eli Lilly (a major U.S. pharmaceutical company) for animal testing.

Prof. Sung's research team has also developed the porous myocardial patch, cell-sheet, and cell pellets for tissue regeneration, ventricular function reconstruction and myocardial infarction. This research has obtained five U.S. and two Taiwanese patents, and is currently cooperating with St. Jude Medical, a major U.S. manufacturer of cardiovascular medical devices for product development. His research laboratory is also integrating conductive polymer materials with previous research findings and tries to achieve a new discovery for cardiac resynchronization and myocardial infarction.

Prof. Hsing-Wen Sung thanked his students for their dedication and creativity, and expressed his gratitude to the cardiac surgery team at the Taichung Veterans General Hospital; the research team at the Medical Imaging Center of the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital at Linkou, and the stem cell research team at the Food Industry Research and Development Institute for their long-term cooperation. "The partnership with these institutes was vital for conducting high-quality research projects," said Prof. Sung. He also thanked his family for their total support that allowing him to focus on academic studies.