Ten scientists from Chinese mainland were elected as academician of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) at the Academy's 27th General Meeting on Nov. 15 in Kigali, Rwanda, among them,  nine are academicians of the Chinese Academy of science (CAS), they are: 

CAO Xiaofeng: PhD, Professor, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. The nominee has made remarkable contributions towards understanding epigenetic regulation in higher plants. Her pioneering work elucidates novel mechanisms of epigenetic control of genome integrity and plant development through histone methylation and RNA metabolism in plants. Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, she has received the L'Oreal Young Female Scientist Award, the National Outstanding Scientist Award, the DuPont Young Scientist Award and the CAS Excellent Performance Award, among others. 

CHEN Fahu: PhD, Professor at Lanzhou University, School of Earth and Environment Sciences, Lanzhou, China. The nominee has proposed and confirmed Westerly Climate Regime concept of Asian climatic change during the Holocene; demonstrated occurrence of rapid changes in both Asian summer and winter monsoons; proposed that agriculture facilitated permanent human occupation of Tibetan Plateau during the late Holocene. Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, he received the National Science Award, Second class, China, 2007, the National Excellent Scientist award, China, 2005 and the China Youth Science and Technology award in 1996, he is also part of the national Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars. 

ZHANG Pingwen: PhD, Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China. The nominee has made outstanding contributions to mathematical theory and computational methods of complex fluids, particularly axial symmetry of Doi-Onsager equation, relation of different models of liquid crystals and numerical methods of nucleation. Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he has received the Feng Kang Prize and the Second Grade National Natural Science Award of China. 

WANG Weihua: Doctoral Degree, Director of Key Lab of Extreme Physics condition laboratory, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. The nominee has demonstrated that elastic moduli as readily measurable parameters are critical for describing most fundamental issues such as deformation and relaxations in glasses which has been extensively used to develop ductile glasses. Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he has received the P. Y. Zhou Prize of Chinese Physical Society and the Second class National Award of Natural Science of China, twice.  

WANG Yifang: PhD, Director, Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), CAS, Beijing, China. The nominee has led the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment, which observed a new type of neutrino oscillation, and determined the corresponding neutrino mixing angle theta-13, opening the door for the future neutrino oscillation experiments. He also led the BESIII and JUNO experiments. Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he has received the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Nikkei Asia Prize, the WKH Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics and the Ho Leung Ho Lee Scientific and Technological Progress Award, among others. 

LI Peng: PhD, Professor and Vice Dean, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. The nominee’s research accomplishments are in apoptosis and lipid metabolism. She purified caspase-9 and uncovered its role as a central node to link apoptotic signals to the core machinery for apoptotic initiation. She also identified CIDE family proteins as major regulators of obesity, diabetes and hepatic steatosis and their novel regulatory role in lipid droplet fusion and growth in adipocytes and hepatcoytes. Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, she has received the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Award, the Arthur Kornberg Memorial Lecture Award, the Tsinghua University Guohua outstanding scholar award and the Young Scientist Award of Singapore, among others. 

TAN Weihong: PhD, Distinguished Professor and Director, State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, and Distinguished Professor, University of Florida; Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, China. The nominee has made pioneer contributions in bioanalytical chemistry and chemical biology. He developed a cell-based aptamer selection technology to generate molecular probes for cellular sample recognition. He also pioneered aptamer based biomarker discovery and detection. Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he has received the National Natural Science Award several times, the American Chemical Society Florida Award for Outstanding Contributions to Chemical Sciences, the Packard Science and Technology Award and the Whitaker Foundation Biomedical Engineering Award, among others. 

LIU Weimin (China): PhD, Director, State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China. The nominee’s work is in the area of development of a series of new space lubricating materials and techniques, high temperature self-lubricating materials, ionic liquids lubricants, high performance eco-friendly lubricant additive materials, surface functionalization of engineering materials, space tribological experiment systems. Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, among others, he has received the National Award of Natural Science twice and the National Award of Technology Invention twice.  

YU Jihong: PhD, Professor, Academician, State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China. The nominee has done important work on the rational design and synthesis of inorganic nanoporous functional materials with the assistance of computational techniques leading to function-led targeted synthesis of inorganic materials. Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, she has received the National Prize for Natural Science twice, the Bau Family Award in Inorganic Chemistry, the 6th Chinese Youth Woman Scientist and the 19th China Youth Science and Technology Award, among others. 

TWAS has long recognized that prizes and awards provide an incentive for scientists to do their best work while winning global recognition. At this 27th General Meeting, researcher ZHAO Yuliang from the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, CAS received the 2016 TWAS Award in Chemistry and CAS Academician ZHOU Qi from Institute of Zoology, CAS shared the 2016 TWAS Award in Chemistry in Biology.  

Up to now, 215 scientists from the Chinese mainland are elected as TWAS academicians. 40 scientists from 17 countries were elected TWAS Academician this year.