Dr. Tzu-ming Pan, Director of the Institute of Biomedical Science and Technology, recently won the Professional Achievement Award from the Chinese American Food Society. The Award is given to a professional with outstanding research achievements in the area of food science. Since its inception in 1974, this is the first time that this award is given to a scholar from Taiwan.

The Chinese American Food Society was founded by ethnic Chinese Americans who were involved in the food business when they attended the IFT (Institute of Food Technology) Conference in New Oreleans in 1974. The earliest name adopted for the organization was IFT-Chinese Association. From 1976-1977 Stephen Chang was elected to be its chairman and NTU's Professor Lucy Sun Hwang from the Institute of Food Technology (now a tenured professor at NTU) served as Secretary General. The name of the organization was changed to The Association of Chinese Food Scientists and Technologists in America. In 1983 the name underwent another change to become Chinese American Food Society, and it has been in use till today.

The CAFS Professional Achievement Award is given to members who have made outstanding achievements in the teaching, research, and industries of food science. Starting from 1983, altogether 24 outstanding members have received this award.

Professor Pan's eminence in research lies primarily in Monascus-related studies. Over the last five years he has published 24 papers on Monascus studies, and acquired patents from the government of the United States. Two of the papers on Monascus Proteomics was selected by the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (published by the American Chemical Society) as the "most cited article of 2007". The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry altogether selected 20 most cited articles, of which American scholars had four, Spanish, Italian, mainland China, and Taiwan each had two articles, and Australia, UK, Canada, Korea, Belgium, Japan, Finland and Holland each had one. The two articles from Taiwan were all authored by NTU faculty, one of which was selected as the Hot papers of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in March, 2008.

The gist of Professor Pan's 24 papers on Monascus studies had to do with the role of Monascus in preventive medicine. Because the life expectancy of human beings is being constantly extended, medical and food science researchers attach increasing importance to preventive medicine. In Professor Pan's published papers relating to preventive medicine, three were on the effect of Monascus reducing cholesterol, one was on Monascus as an anti-fatigue agent; two were on Monascus improving the memory/learning ability of Alzheimer disease patients; and two were on Monascus as a anti-cancer agent by using proteomics technology.

In addition, Professor Pan also published two papers on Monascus being able to reduce the cholesterol content of chicken eggs and chicken meat when added to chicken feed. His method of producing low cholesterol chicken eggs has acquired a patent from the U.S., and his method for producing low cholesterol chicken egg and chicken meat is currently under patent review in Taiwan.

As Professor Pan's research in the production and application of Monascus is exceptionally profound and published in the top notch journals of his trade, and received international acclaim and recognition, the review committee of the Chinese American Food Society decided unanimously to award the Professional Achievement Award to Professor Pan.

In addition to the above mentioned awards, Professor Pan has earned numerous honors, which include, and are not limited to: distinguished research and paper awards from Taiwan Association for Food Science and Technology, the Health Food Society of Taiwan, the Taiwan Society of Microbiology, the Agricultural Chemical Society of Taiwan, Taiwan's Bio Industry Organization, and National Taiwan University, etc.