On November 3, at the 2020 National Science and Technology Awards Conference held in Beijing, multiple research achievements in the cell field received awards:
2020 National Natural Science Award (Second Prize)
2020 National Science and Technology Progress Award (Second Prize)
Among them, "Key Technology Innovation and Clinical Translation in Cell Therapy for Ischemic Heart Disease" — jointly completed by the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Fuwai Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the First Hospital of Hebei Medical University, and the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with Professor Shen Zhenya, Director of Cardiac and Macrovascular Surgery at the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, as the first contributor — is closely related to clinical practice.
The incidence of ischemic heart diseases such as coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction is rising year by year. Pharmacological therapy, interventional stenting, and surgical bypass commonly used in the clinic can only improve myocardial blood supply, but cannot resolve the loss of cardiomyocytes caused by ischemia or the resulting end-stage heart failure caused by secondary ventricular remodeling. The "Key Technology Innovation and Clinical Translation in Cell Therapy for Ischemic Heart Disease" project, jointly completed by the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University and other institutions, addresses these challenges through cell therapy and was awarded the National Science and Technology Progress Award (Second Prize).
"We have established new theories and methods for cell therapy of ischemic heart disease, and innovative key transplantation technologies have broken through the bottleneck of cell therapy for ischemic heart disease," said Professor Shen Zhenya, Director of Cardiac and Macrovascular Surgery at the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University. The project has been promoted and applied at multiple hospitals across China and has completed the largest-sample clinical translational application of cell therapy for ischemic heart disease in China, bringing benefits to patients.
In 2003, this stem cell transplantation technology was the first to be successfully applied clinically in China. A total of 135 stem cell transplantations had been performed (as of before 2017), with 83.3% of patients showing significant symptomatic improvement.—— Further reading ——
On January 10, 2020, at the 2019 National Science and Technology Awards Conference held in Beijing by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, the achievement "Key Technology Innovation and Clinical Application Research of Allogeneic Mesenchymal Stem Cells in the Treatment of Refractory Lupus Erythematosus" — jointly completed by Sun Lingyun's team in the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology at the Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School and Hu Junyuan (formerly named Hu Xiang) of Shenzhen Beike Biotechnology Co., Ltd. — was awarded the National Technology Invention Award.
