Kuo-Hsiung Lee, Ph.D., was chosen to receive the Third Cheung On Tak International Award for Outstanding Contribution to Chinese Medicine from Hong Kong Baptist University’s School of Chinese Medicine.
Lee is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and director of the Natural Products Research Laboratories in the School’s Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Cheung On Tak Award is given every two years to scientists and scholars with groundbreaking and internationally recognized achievements in advancing the internationalization of Chinese medicine or Chinese medicine research, according to Hong Kong Baptist University. Lee received the award and delivered a lecture at a ceremony in Hong Kong on April 8.
Lee’s research combines the fields advanced natural products chemistry and synthetic medicinal chemistry using cutting-edge life-science technologies to design and discover bioactive natural products and their analogs based on herbal medicines for clinical trials as drug candidates. Since 1971, his efforts have led to the discovery of several thousand such compounds and have provided leads for a new generation of pharmaceutical agents.
During his 45-year career, Lee has had 846 research articles published in refereed journals, has been awarded 114 patents and has delivered 427 invited lectures and presentations. He currently serves as an editorial board advisory member to 28 scientific journals.
In 2015, Lee received the Ernest H. Volwiler Award, the highest research award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. He was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, by the government of Japan in 2011 for his contributions to the development of medicinal chemistry in that nation. He also received the American Society of Pharmacology’s Norman R. Farnsworth Research Achievement Award in 2009.