Dr. Tran Ha Lien Phuong.

This is a handpicked selection of 100 prize-winning Asian researchers, academicians, innovators and business leaders from countries in the Asia Pacific region such as China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Vietnam’s Tran Ha Lien Phuong, who won the 2015 L’Oreal - UNESCO Women in Science International Rising Talent award, developed fucoidan - based polymeric micelles for cancer treatment and diagnosis.

Dang Thi Oanh won the Elsevier Foundation Award for Early - Career Women Scientists in the Developing World for developing algorithms to solve problems that are normally too complicated for computers.

Those who are named in this list must have received a national or international prize in 2014 or 2015 for his or her scientific research and made a significant contribution in scientific discovery or leadership that has benefited either academia or industry.

“Science coming out of Asia has not yet enjoyed the same attention and exposure as science in the West. With the AS100 list, we hope to give Asian scientists due recognition for quality research that seeks to further scientific knowledge, break technological boundaries and improve human lives,” said Dr. Juliana Chan, Nanyang Assistant Professor at the Nanyang Technological University and the founder and editor-in-chief of Asian Scientist Magazine, in a press release.