The Founder and CEO of Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation Receives China's Highest Honor Granted to a Foreigner

NEW YORK, Oct. 2, 2018 The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation (SWCRF), an international nonprofit organization that funds cutting-edge cancer research, today announced that its founder and CEO, Samuel Waxman, M.D. received China's highest honor granted to a foreigner. The Vice-Premier of the People's Republic of China, Liu He, presented the "Friendship Award," to Dr. Waxman at a ceremony in Beijing on Saturday.

The award was established in China in 1991, and is conferred annually to foreign civilians who have made significant contributions to the country's "national development." This year, more than 50 individuals from over 20 countries were presented with the Friendship Award and included experts in healthcare and technology.

"This award demonstrates the boundless possibilities that can occur when people collaborate unselfishly and productively. The success that we have had should not be a surprise since science is an international language and the pursuit for cancer cures is an international goal," said Dr. Waxman.

More than 30 years ago, just as the United States and China governments began normalizing relations, Dr. Waxman started a collaboration with investigators at China's cancer research universities including Shanghai Second Medical University, and Ruijin Hospital Shanghai Institute of Hematology (SIH).

Dr. Waxman and China-based investigators focused on researching leukemia and would achieve two significant breakthroughs. One indelibly changed the outcome for thousands of patients diagnosed annually with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), a once devastating subtype of acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

The collaboration between the SWCRF and labs in Shanghai took Differentiation Therapy from proof of principle to the standard treatment for APL. It was once a fatal disease, and now more than 95 percent of patients are cured through Differentiation Therapy.

Later, Dr. Waxman and the SWCRF established its Institute Without Walls™ to drive further collaboration with scientists in China, United States and Europe.

"The Friendship Award is the highest-level recognition awarded by the Chinese government to foreign experts. The collaboration between the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation and Shanghai Institute of Hematology also serves as a paradigm for U.S.-China scientific cooperation," said Chen Zhu, Ph.D., Minister of Health and professor of molecular biology at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Sai-juan Chen, M.D., Director of Shanghai Institute of Hematology.

CONTACT: Norah Lawlor, [email protected], 1-212-967-6900

SOURCE Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation