Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced that Professor Jiandong Jiang has received an Agilent Thought Leader Award in support of his studies on cancer stem cells differentiation induced by natural products.

"Cancer is a chronic disease generated by multiple factors. Our research is focused on the treatment of cancers with new concepts or principles, using cutting-edge techniques," said Professor Jiang.

Professor Jiang is director of the Institute of Materia Medica (IMM), Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) and Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) in Beijing, China. He is also the vice-chairman of the China Pharmaceutical Innovation and Research Development Association (PhIRDA). Professor Jiang's research focuses on antimicrobial drugs, including viruses and bacteria, anticancer drugs, and the development of treatments for metabolic syndrome.

The Agilent Thought Leader Award will enable Professor Jiang's team to implement metabolite flux analyses, metabolism analyses, and integrated biology approaches to characterize the anti-tumor activity of natural products. In addition to Agilent mass spectrometry solutions, Professor Jiang's lab will also make extensive use of Agilent Seahorse XF technology, and Agilent MassHunter and VistaFlux software. The project will also include a collaboration with Professor Wenbin Li from the Beijing Shijitan Hospital, Capital Medical University to perform clinical related research.

"Agilent is proud to continue its support of cancer research with the use of our mass spectrometry systems, bioinformatics software, and metabolic analysis tools to facilitate the identification and characterization of cancer drugs," said Victor Chan, Agilent vice president, and general manager of Laboratory Solutions for Agilent Greater China. Chan is the executive sponsor of this award.

The IMM supports research and discovery of innovative drugs useful in treating or preventing human diseases. This work is done via creative multidisciplinary research based on Chinese herbal medicine and natural product research, along with the adoption of modern medical, and pharmaceutical theories and technologies.

The Agilent Thought Leader Award promotes fundamental scientific advances by contributing financial support, products, and expertise to the research of influential thought leaders in the life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemical markets. Information about previous award recipients is available on the Agilent Thought Leader Award webpage.