The myth-buster

Charity foundation

In 2018, he quit his job in the US and founded the Shiyu Children Foundation in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. It aims to promote awareness, patient education and drug discovery for pediatric cancers, of which 40,000 new cases are diagnosed every year in China.

"Childhood cancers are rare, making up about 1 percent of all cancers. As a result, these groups have been neglected in detection and treatment," Li says, adding that everyone with cancer should be concerned.

According to IARC, cancer in children is very different from cancer in adults, involving different cancer types and occurring much less frequently. Today, in high-income countries, 80 percent of childhood cancer patients have a good chance of survival, compared with only 20 percent 50 years ago.

Globally in the last 30 years, only four new drugs have been approved that were specifically developed to treat children with cancer.

"There is not much economic benefit in the research of childhood cancers. That's why our organization is needed to make a difference," Li says.