HKBU presents international award to renowned Chinese medicine experts

The School of Chinese Medicine (SCM) at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) presented on 13 July the sixth “Cheung On Tak International Award for Outstanding Contribution to Chinese Medicine” to Professor Chen Lidian and Professor Chen Shilin in recognition of their achievements in academic and scientific research on Chinese medicine and their contributions to the modernisation and internationalisation of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

The award presentation ceremony was held online. It was officiated by Mr Gavin Cheung, Director of the Cheung On Tak Charity Foundation; Professor Alexander Wai, President and Vice-Chancellor of HKBU; Professor Chen Kaixian, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chairperson of the Panel of Adjudicators for the Award; and Professor Lyu Aiping, Dean of Chinese Medicine at HKBU. Adjudicators Professor Chen Keji, Professor Leung Ping-chung and Professor So Kwok-fai also attended the ceremony.

Professor Chen Lidian is a specialist in integrated Chinese and Western medicine in the rehabilitation sciences. He is also a pioneer and leading figure in the rehabilitation field. He is dedicated to integrating TCM rehabilitation theory into modern rehabilitation therapies, and he has developed generic technologies for TCM rehabilitation and formulated clinical practice guidelines and standards, which have been widely adopted by rehabilitation service providers even in Germany and Switzerland. Professor Chen’s significant contributions to the development of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine in rehabilitation have been highly recognised.

Professor Chen Shilin is the Director and Chief Researcher of the Institute of Chinese Materia Medica of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences and the Director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Traditional Medicine. He has devoted his career to the quality assurance and authentication of TCM. Not only did he develop Herbgenomics as a discipline, but he also developed the “Global Pharmacopoeia Genome Database” and a DNA barcoding system which solved the long-standing problem of authentication in Chinese herbal medicine at the genetic level. As a result, he has opened up a new chapter in the authentication of TCM and genomics.

The two award recipients delivered online lectures after the ceremony, which attracted close to 400 participants, including Chinese medicine professionals as well as staff and students of SCM. Professor Chen Lidian spoke on the topic “Innovation and Development of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine in Rehabilitation”, while Professor Chen Shilin discussed “Herbgenomics – Bridging Traditional Chinese Medicine and Modern Technologies”.

Established by the SCM in 2011, the biennial Cheung On Tak International Award for Outstanding Contribution to Chinese Medicine aims to recognise the scientists and scholars who have advanced the internationalisation of Chinese medicine or Chinese medicine research with their groundbreaking and internationally-recognised achievements.