Using the ‘power of information’ to change the world
Yi-Shan Chen, ICIJ’s member from Taiwan, witnessed the power of information through martial law and the Tiananmen Square protests. Now, as a journalist, she aims to harness that power for the people. March 15, 2021
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists collaborates with hundreds of members across the world. Each of these journalists is among the best in his or her country and many have won national and global awards. Our monthly series, Meet the Investigators, highlights the work of these tireless journalists.
Yi-Shan Chen is the deputy managing editor at CommonWealth Magazine in Taiwan, where she started her career in 1996 before joining the China Times. Chen, whose background is in economics, has partnered with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on several investigations over the years, including Offshore Leaks and The Panama Papers.
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University of Illinois Chicago is one of the U.S. sites participating in clinical trials to cure severe red blood congenital diseases such as sickle cell anemia or Thalassemia by safely modifying the DNA of patients blood cells.
The first cases treated with this approach were recently published in an article co-authored by Dr. Damiano Rondelli, the Michael Reese Professor of Hematology at the UIC College of Medicine. The article reports two patients have been cured of beta thalassemia and sickle cell disease after their own genes were edited with CRISPR-Cas9 technology. The two researchers who invented this technology received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020.