As a leading research institution in Taiwan, Academia Sinica is charged with one key mission of achieving academic excellence and benefiting human society with its research results. Considering the fact that Taiwan is projected to become a super-aged society in 2025, with more than 20% of its population aged 65 or older, Academia Sinica has joined forces with the global community in the Healthy Longevity Grant Challenge Competition initiated by the US National Academy of Medicine. We support the spirit highlighted by this Competition to promote breakthrough innovations that lead to paradigm-shift discoveries to prevent or cure diseases, increase quality of life, and minimize the negative impacts of an aging population. In Taiwan, Academia Sinica and the Ministry of Science and Technology have formed an alliance to promote this project. This competition consists of three phases:

  • Catalyst Phase (2020-2022)
    Starting in 2020, approximately 450 awards worth US$50,000 each is issued as seed funding to advance innovative ideas. Awardees will attend an annual Innovators Summit held in September, 2021 to share their work with policymakers, researchers, potential investors, and fellow innovators from around the world.
  • Accelerator Phase
    Starting in 2021, awards from US$500,000 to $1,000,000 or more will be issued to Catalyst Phase awardees who have demonstrated significant progress in order to support the further advancement of their ideas.
  • Grand Prize
    Starting in 2023, one or more grand prize(s) of up to US$5,000,000 will be awarded for breakthrough innovations that extend the human health span.

In 2020, the call for the Catalyst Award received 118 proposals with a broad coverage of disciplines, ranging from diagnosis and management of diseases, development of medical devices to policy-making. Five awardees were selected after a double-blind review process. These awardees have received seed funding to advance their innovative ideas for the development of medical devices for caregivers, the detection and early diagnosis of diseases, and the investigation of gut microbiota in diseases. The awardees will also be invited to attend the 1st Annual Innovator Summit to be held at Washington DC in September, 2021. The five awardees and their research topics are:

  1. Dr. Chia -Lung Liu, Manager, Information & Communications Research Labs, Industrial Technology Research Institute: Artificial Intelligence Assisted Early Diagnosis Mechanism for Alzheimer’s Disease
  2. Dr. Pei-Yu Wang, Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, National Taiwan University: Targeting dietary restriction-associated gut microbiota to prevent and treat age-related cognitive decline
  3. Dr. Patrick C.H. Hsieh, Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica: Mechanism of gut microbiota-regulated cardiac repair after infarction in aged mice
  4. Dr. Jung-Tang Huang, Professor, Institute of Mechatronic Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology: Development of body exoskeleton
  5. Dr. Chen-Hsun Weng, Assistant Research Fellow, Chief of Administrative Affairs, Medical Device Innovation Center, National Cheng Kung University: Dementia-MDIC Patch for healthy people

The call for 2nd round of Healthy Longevity Grand Challenge Catalyst Award will be announced shortly. You are welcome to submit innovative research ideas that can lead to paradigm-shift discoveries to prevent or cure diseases, increase quality of life, and minimize the negative impacts of an aging population. Facing the pandemics, additional emphases on “disease prevention and management” and “response to pandemics” will be included in the call for the 2021 Catalyst Award.