Qian Li, a 36-year-old Chinese-American scientist, recently took the top prize in the Boyalife, Science & Science Translational Medicine Awards in Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine.

The award was jointly initiated by Boyalife Group, the journal Science and its subordinate serial Science Translational Medicine to encourage innovation in research and clinical application of stem-cell technologies and cellular therapy for cancers.

Second place was taken by Israeli scientist Yosef Buganim. The award ceremony was recently held in San Francisco.

Qian won the award with her research paper Hope for the brokenhearted: Cellular reprogramming improves cardiac function in a mouse model of myocardial infarction, which was published in Science magazine earlier this month.

The initiative is the first major award in the field of stem-cell and regenerative medicine globally. Boyalife is a bio-pharmaceutical group with research-and-development centers in China, and includes the biggest and the most automated stem-cell bank in the world, according to its website.

Beginning this year, Boyalife and the journal Science will choose two early-career scientists annually who have made significant contributions or achievements in related field as the award winners, as well as granting some encouragement awards.

The award will have great value for the related scientific field, adding that the journal will use its global influence to organize an international professional jury panel to select the winners, said Kent Anderson, publisher of Science, when the award was launched.