On Nov. 18, winners of the 2019 Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation awards were announced. Prof. Lu Yanhui, Chief Scientist of the Innovation Team for Monitoring and Control Economic Crop Pests at IPP-CAAS, received the 2019 Science and Technology Innovation Award. This is the second time that scientists at IPP-CAAS were awarded by the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation, since Prof. Zhou Xueping won the Science and Technology Progress Award in 2017. It is known that the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation awarded one “Science and Technology Achievement Award”, 35 “Science and Technology Progress Award” and 20 “Science and Technology Innovation Award” in 2019.

Prof. Lu Yanhui has been engaged in the research of cotton pest control for many years and carried out research work on the population status succession mechanism of non-target pests on transgenic cottons. In order to investigate the occurrence of cotton pests in the field, he stayed in the countryside for several years. From morning to night, he spent all the time in the cotton field, or conducting experiment in the lab. During those years, he had almost traveled the whole cotton-growing region of north China. Hard work finally paid off. Prof. Lu’s team has successfully analyzed the population status succession patterns and ecological mechanism of non-target pests after large-scale planting of transgenic cotton, which effectively clarified the disputes and misunderstandings about the environmentalsafety of transgenic crops. A series of results from this work have been published on Science and Nature. Among them, the paper published on Science in 2010 was highlighted on the cover page. And the 2012 Nature paper was selected as the “Top Ten Scientific Advances in China” of the year.

Prof. Lu was born in the 80s', and is a young Ph. D supervisor winning many important honorary titles including “Ten Thousand Talents Program – Top YoungTalents” of the CPC Central Committee, “Young and Middle-aged Leading Talents in Science and Technology” of the Ministry of Science and Technology, “Young and Middle-aged Experts with Outstanding Contributions” of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, “China Youth Science and Technology Award”, “China Outstanding Young Science and Technology Talents Award” and “China Youth May 4th Medal”. Now, one more badge was added – the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation medal.

It is reported that Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation was established by the Hong Kong patriotic financial industrialists, He Shanheng, Liang Qiuju, He Tian, and Li Guowei in 1994 and registered in Hong Kong. The purpose of the foundation is to encourage scientific and technological workers to climb the heights of science and technology by rewarding them for their outstanding achievements, advocating the social trend of respecting knowledge, talents and science. Over the past 25 years, Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation has always adhered to the principle of “open, fair and just”, and selected and rewarded outstanding scientists, engineers and industry leaders, making positive contributions to promoting China’s scientific and technological progress and creating a social atmosphere that respects knowledge and talents.

By Ouyang Canbin (oycb@ippcaas.cn)