George Ching-Hung Kuo is a Taiwanese-born scientist, who along with Michael Houghton, Qui-Lim Choo and

Daniel W. Bradley Daniel W. Bradley (born 13 July 1941) is an important American virologist who, along with Michael Houghton, Qui-Lim Choo and George Kuo at Chiron Corporation, worked to help isolate the Hepatitis C virus in 1989. He graduated from San José ...

, co-discovered and cloned the hepatitis C virus in 1989. Kuo graduated from the National Taiwan University in 1961 and completed his PhD in molecular biology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1972. Following the discovery of Hepatitis C at Chiron Corporation, Kuo, who was working in a lab next door to Michael Houghton's, designed a test that could screen blood for the infection, and in 1988

Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

was the first person to receive blood that had been screened by Kuo's method. The United States would go on to license the testing technique in 1990. The development of diagnostic reagents to detect HCV in blood supplies has reduced the risk of acquiring HCV through blood transfusion from one in three to about one in two million. He was awarded the

Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award The Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award is a scientific award given by the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) to scientists with "an international reputation in transfusion medicine or cellular therapies" "whose original research resulted in an ...

(1992) and Dale A. Smith Memorial Award (2005) of the American Association of Blood Banks, and the

William Beaumont Prize The William Beaumont Prize is a scientific award given by the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) to scientists who have "made a major contribution (a single accomplishment or series of accomplishments) that has significantly advanced car ...

of the American Gastroenterological Association in 1994.

Personal life

His wife is Carol Lan-Fang Kuo, who also worked for the Chiron Corporation in

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The resident population was 12,905 as o ...

. Together they worked on developing vaccines and blood-testing procedures for

hepatitis C Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that primarily affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. During the initial infection people often have mild or no symptoms. Occasionally a fever, dark urine, a ...

. They have a daughter, Irene Carol, a graduate of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

and the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...

, an associate professor of

ophthalmology Ophthalmology ( ) is a surgical subspecialty within medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders. An ophthalmologist is a physician who undergoes subspecialty training in medical and surgical eye care. Following a medic ...

at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, and a specialist in cornea and refractive surgery at the Wilmer Eye Institute.

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people National Taiwan University alumni Albert Einstein College of Medicine alumni Taiwanese virologists {{biologist-stub