Determining the center's research focus, Academia Sinica Fellow Kuo-hsiung Lee received the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon in 2011 awarded by Japanese Consulate in Atlanta consul general Takuji Hanatani for his significant contributions to the development of medical chemistry in Japan. The Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon established in 1875 was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government. The image of the Rising Sun symbolizes rank and honor and the order is awarded to those who have made distinguished achievements in the fields of Japan's politics, diplomacy, industrial economy, academic culture, and sports development.

Kuo-hsiung Lee has studied the effective components of Chinese herbs by means of medicinal chemistry and adopted the synthetic approach to optimize them to further become new world-class drugs for clinical trials. His team has so far found thousands of effective components and their synthetic derivatives, shedding some light on the treatment of AIDS, cancer, and other diseases.

Director Yang-chang Wu in 2015 collected the 12th National Innovation Award. The center's R&D team composed of  Director Yang-chang Wu, Assistant Research Fellow Juan-cheng Yang, Assistant Research Fellow Yeong-jiunn Jang, and Kaohsiung Medical University Professor Fang-rong Chang and Research Fellow Da-wei Chuang was awarded this great honor by Legislative Yuan president Wang Jin-pyng and vice premier Chang San-cheng for their joint development of new type anticancer drugs targeting glutathione S-transferase omega (GSTO), which had the potential for the development into clinical anticancer drugs. The team discovered for the first time that the novelty flavonoid natural component protoapigenone has excellent anticancer killing ability through Taiwan's medicinal plant Thelypteris torresiana. Omega family GSTO is the target of drug inhibition by the study of structural activity correlation. This kind of GSTO inhibitor has been proved to be synergistic with a variety of today's anticancer drugs used clinically.

The award recognized the winning industry-academia team's accomplishments in innovation and R&D, which have injected energy into Taiwan's biotech industry and commercialized research results, helping to boost the competitiveness of the industry.

Under the leadership of Director Kuo-hsiung Lee and Yang-chang Wu, the center is to use Chinese herbal medicine as the raw material to develop Western medicine. We expect to promote academic exchanges and enhance R&D synergies by building an international cooperation platform, hoping that Taiwan will maintain the advantage and leadership in the R&D fields of Chinese herbal medicine or Chinese medicinal formulas.