Dr. Ferid Murad, an honorary professor at Asia University (AU) as well as a Nobel Prize laureate, gave a speech at AU. He encouraged AU students to be ambitious and dream big when they were young. In order to have a chance to become a first Nobel Prize laureate from Taiwan, he told the students that they also needed to work very hard, dare to challenge authorities, behave with creative thoughts, and overcome difficulties and stick it out.
When AU was established, Founder Chang-Hai Tsai hoped that AU could cultivate a Taiwanese Nobel Prize laureate. Invited for the ninth time, Dr. Murad gave a talk about ways in which Taiwan should do to foster a Nobel Prize laureate in a forum with Jeffrey J.P. Tsai, AU President, Chong-Yi Xu, a member of the Board of Trustees at China Medical University, as well as a group of elite students at AU.
AU President Jeffrey J.P. Tsai said that Dr. Murad was determined to win a Nobel Prize when he was young and finally granted one after overcoming many difficulties. As a Nobel Prize laureate, Dr. Murad still continues to devote himself to researches and so has a lot of achievements. President Tsai encouraged students to raise questions, as various and tough as possible, and challenged Dr. Murad.
“What should Taiwan do to cultivate a local Nobel Prize laureate?” asked Qian-Man Hong, a junior of the Foreign Languages and Literature Department at AU. Dr. Murad said in reply that young people were asked to respect the elderly and should not be against teachers in Taiwan as well as other Asian countries. However, he always encourages Asian young people to be not afraid of challenging with innovative thoughts. One of the professors in the medical school once said to Dr. Murad that only half of the lectures were correct and that students had to find out themselves which was right or wrong without being told. “It affects me a lot!” said Dr. Murad. “If you dare to challenge teachers and work extremely hard, then it could be you who win a Nobel Prize in the future.” Dr. Murad also mentioned that he could spend over 16 hours every day on studying and thinking while he was a university student. Although restless for several days sometimes, he still enjoyed it a lot.
Dr. Murad pointed out that his grandfather was a shepherd in Albania and that his father was forced to drop out of school and became a shepherd because his grandfather died young. However, poverty did not stop Dr. Murad from studying hard to pursue a PhD degree. His researches range from biomedicine to biology and apply to medicine as well. When he determined to win a Nobel Prize with his best friends in the University of Virginia, even his brothers thought he was insane.
Li-Hong Yen, a student of the Financial and Economic Laws Department at AU, asked a question about how a leader should handle leadership difficulties. Dr. Murad responded that team working was essential. He used to keep pushing team members to solve problems when he is confronted with troubles. But he changed his attitude of dealing with problems afterwards. Those questions that he was unable to solve at the moment could be turned into research topics in the future. Dr. Murad noted that some questions need not be answered right away if we looked at them in a broader way.
