Date: March 24, 2022

Source: News Center

Author: Li Weimiao and Gao Yi

Martin G. Banwell, an academician from Australian Academy of Sciences, has been honored with the 2021 Friendship Award from the Chinese government. Banwell has devoted himself to teaching and setting up JNU’s Institute of Advanced and Applied Chemical Synthesis. Over 40 years, he has cultivated 81 Ph.D. students, 15 out of whom are Chinese. He hopes to pass on his own knowledge and experience to Chinese students and to help China foster outstanding scientists in the next generation.

(Martin G. Banwell)

In October 2018, Banwell, a well-known organic chemist and scholar in the field of natural product synthesis and new drug research and development, joined Jinan University as the first dean of the Institute of Advanced and Applied Chemical Synthesis.

He has long been committed to research on total synthesis of natural products, and his team was the largest and most productive in the Institute of Chemistry of the Australian National University. To date, he has published 402 papers as corresponding author in international mainstream journals of organic synthetic chemistry and obtained 14 international invention patents. He serves on the editorial boards of 13 international academic authoritative journals, including Green Chemistry and Chemistry: An Asian Journal.

In 2004, Banwell was elected an academician of the Australian Academy of Sciences. In 2018, he was named an Officer of the Order of Australia, the country's highest honor for citizens, by the Federal Government of Australia for his outstanding contributions to scientific research.

(Banwell, second row, fourth from right, participating in the 2021 Chinese Government Friendship Award Ceremony)

His connection with China started from his father's influence in a New Zealand family friendly to China. His father, John Banwell, a senior geologist and United Nations expert on new energy development, was enthusiastic about Chinese culture and taught himself Mandarin. In the 1970s, he brought Martin a gift, the book Quotations of Mao Zedong, after a work trip to China. 

In 2013, Banwell joined the Innovative Drug Discovery and Modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicine program led by Yao Xinsheng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of JNU's Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Natural Medicine. On Yao's invitation, Banwell paid his first visit to JNU in April 2014. Two years later, he was elected a Pearl River Scholar Chair Professor of Jinan University.

(Banwell and Lan Ping, a JNU teacher, in the lab)

Three generations of Banwell's family have forged an indissoluble bond with China. His eldest son, James, teaches, undergraduate courses online in JNU's International School. 

Banwell was the first dean of the Institute of Advanced and Applied Chemical Synthesis, established on the Zhuhai Campus in October 2018. He served the double first-class pharmacy discipline by leading the construction of domestic first-class and international leading research centers, talent-training bases, and platforms for basic research and transformation of scientific research achievements. In 2020, he became JNU's first full-time foreign academician.

(Banwell, sixth from right, participating in the Symposium for Professionals in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area)

On June 22, 2010, then-Vice President Xi Jinping attended the unveiling ceremony of the China-Australia International Joint Research Center for Functional Molecular Materials at the Institute of Chemistry of the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia's capital. Banwell, then the dean of the institute, presided over the welcome ceremony and accompanied Xi to a photo exhibition on Sino-Australian joint research cooperation in science and technology.

(Banwell, front row, third from left, hosting the welcome ceremony for Xi)

(Banwell with JNU colleagues)