Hsien Wu

Hsien Wu (simplified Chinese: 吴宪; traditional Chinese: 吳憲; pinyin: Wú Xiàn; 24 November 1893 – 8 August 1959) was a Chinese biochemist and geneticist. He was the first to propose that protein denaturation was a purely conformational change, i.e., corresponded to protein unfolding and not to some chemical alteration of the protein.[1] This crucial idea was popularized later by Linus Pauling and Alfred Mirsky.[2]

Wu Hsien
Born(1893-11-24)24 November 1893
Fuzhou, Fujian, China
Died8 August 1959(1959-08-08) (aged 65)
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
NationalityChina and United States of America
Alma materHarvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Scientific career
FieldsProtein science
Biochemistry
InstitutionsUniversity of Alabama
Peking Union Medical College

Wu was born in Fuzhou, Fujian, China. He studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (undergraduate), and then trained at Harvard University (graduate) under Otto Folin, developing the first assay for blood sugar (Folin-Wu method). Wu then returned to China to a position at Peking Union Medical College, becoming head of the biochemistry department in 1924. At the end of that year, he married his research assistant Daisy Yen and would continue collaborating with her until his death in 1959.[3]

Wu left China in 1947 to reside in the United States.

Wu's son, Ray J. Wu, became the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Molecular Genetics and Biology at Cornell University, and was active in studying transgenic plants, particularly rice.

References

  1. Wu, H (1931). "Studies on Denaturation of Proteins. XIII. A Theory of Denaturation". Chinese Journal of Physiology. 5: 321–344. Preliminary reports were presented before the XIIIth International Congress of Physiology at Boston (19–24 August 1929) and in the October 1929 issue of the American Journal of Physiology.
  2. Mirsky, AE; Pauling L (1936). "On the Structure of Native, Denatured, and Coagulated Proteins" (PDF). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 22 (7): 439–447. Bibcode:1936PNAS...22..439M. doi:10.1073/pnas.22.7.439. PMC 1076802. PMID 16577722.
  3. 曹 (Cao), 育 (Yu) (7 March 2008). 屈 (Qu), 宝坤 (Baokun) (ed.). "最早在国内从事生物化学研究的女学者——吴严彩韵" [Daisy Yen Wu—The First Woman Scholar in China Engaged in Biochemical Research]. 中国科技史料 (in Chinese). Beijing: Institute of the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Chinese Library Classification Number K826.1. Archived from the original on 10 September 2012. Retrieved 4 October 2020.

Further reading


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