King-Wai Yau (; born October 27, 1948) is a Chinese-born American neuroscientist and Professor of Neuroscience at

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospi ...

in Baltimore, Maryland.

Biography

Born in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

(formerly called Canton),

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

, China, he was the sixth of seven children. His family relocated to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

within months of his birth. His father, a businessman, died when Yau was only five years old. He attended secondary school in Buddhist Wong Fung Ling College and St. Paul's Co-educational College in Hong Kong, before entering

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the fi ...

Faculty of Medicine to study medicine. Not wanting to be a physician, however, he departed for the United States in 1968 after only one year of medical study. He received an A.B. in physics (University Scholar; Phi Beta Kappa) from

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

in 1971 and a Ph.D. in neurobiology from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1975, completing his doctoral thesis under John G. Nicholls, a former student of

Bernard Katz Sir Bernard Katz, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (; 26 March 1911 – 20 April 2003) was a German-born British people, British physician and biophysics, biophysicist, noted for his work on nerve physiology. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiol ...

. He did postdoctoral work with Denis A. Baylor at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, then with Sir Alan L. Hodgkin at

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, United Kingdom. Thereafter, he was on the faculty of

University of Texas Medical Branch The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) is a public academic health science center in Galveston, Texas. It is part of the University of Texas System. UTMB includes the oldest medical school in Texas, and has about 11,000 employees. In Febr ...

at Galveston (1981–86), rising to Professor of Physiology and Biophysics in 1985. In 1986, he became Professor of Neuroscience and Investigator of

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...

(1986-2004) at

, where he has been since.

Scientific contributions

He is known for discoveries on how light and odor are sensed in the eye and the nose, triggering neural signals to be transmitted to the brain. He has greatly elucidated the properties of the light responses and their underlying phototransduction mechanisms in retinal rods and

cones A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines conn ...

, as well as in intrinsically-photosensitive retinal ganglion cells which express the photopigment,

melanopsin Melanopsin is a type of photopigment belonging to a larger family of light-sensitive retinal proteins called opsins and encoded by the gene ''Opn4''. In the mammalian retina, there are two additional categories of opsins, both involved in the for ...

, to mediate mostly non-image vision such as

pupillary light reflex The pupillary light reflex (PLR) or photopupillary reflex is a reflex that controls the diameter of the pupil, in response to the intensity (luminance) of light that falls on the retinal ganglion cells of the retina in the back of the eye, there ...

and photoentrainment of the

circadian rhythm A circadian rhythm (), or circadian cycle, is a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep–wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours. It can refer to any process that originates within an organism (i.e., Endogeny (biology), endogeno ...

. He has made similarly important discoveries on olfactory transduction in the receptor neurons of the nasal olfactory epithelium. His work impacts broadly on understanding G-protein signaling at a quantitative level. His investigations on the spontaneous activity of rod and cone pigments have provided a physicochemical explanation for why our vision does not extend into

Infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

wavelengths. He is a Member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

and the

National Academy of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, En ...

, and a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

, as well as a Member of

Academia Sinica Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...

, Taiwan.

Selected honors & awards

* 1978, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow * 1980, Visiting Fellow,

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

, United Kingdom * 1980, Rank Prize in

Optoelectronics Optoelectronics (or optronics) is the study and application of electronic devices and systems that find, detect and control light, usually considered a sub-field of photonics. In this context, ''light'' often includes invisible forms of radiatio ...

, The Rank Prize Funds, United Kingdom * 1993, Friedenwald Award, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) * 1994, Alcon Award in Vision Research, Alcon Research Institute * 1995, Fellow,

* 1996, Magnes Prize,

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

* 2004, Teacher of the Year,

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

School of Medicine A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, MB ...

* 2005, Alcon Award in Vision Research (second time), Alcon Research Institute * 2006, Balazs Prize, International Society for Eye Research (ISER) * 2008,

António Champalimaud António de Sommer Champalimaud ( Lapa, Lisbon, 19 March 1918 – Lapa, Lisbon, 8 May 2004) was a Portuguese banker and industrialist in 2004. He was the wealthiest man in Portugal, he earned his fortune with insurance, banking, iron ore min ...

Vision Award, The

Champalimaud Foundation The Champalimaud Foundation ( pt, Fundação Champalimaud) is a private biomedical research foundation. It was created according to the will of the late entrepreneur António de Sommer Champalimaud, in 2004. The complete name of the foundation ...

, Portugal * 2010, Member,

* 2012,

CNIB The CNIB Foundation (french: Fondation INCA) is a volunteer agency and charitable organization dedicated to assisting Canadians who are blind or living with vision loss, and to provide information about vision health for all Canadians. Founded ...

Chanchlani Global Vision Research Award, Canada * 2013,

Alexander Hollaender Award in Biophysics The Alexander Hollaender Award in Biophysics is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for outstanding contributions in biophysics". Named in honor of Alexander Hollaender, it has been awarded every three years since 1998. Recipien ...

* 2016, RRF Paul Kayser International Award for Retinal Research (ISER) * 2017, Daniel Nathans Scientific Innovator Award,

* 2018, Member,

* 2019, Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research, Helen Keller Foundation & BrightFocus Foundation * 2019, Beckman-Argyros Vision Award
Arnold & Mabel Beckman Foundation
* 2022, Member,

, Taiwan

Highly-Cited Papers

Articles with over 500 citations according to Google Schola

as of May 6, 2017: *1979 "The membrane current of single rod outer segments", 607 citations *1979 "Responses of retinal rods to single photons", 819 citations *1989 "Cyclic GMP-activated conductance of retinal photoreceptor cells", 590 citations *1990 "Primary structure and functional expression of a cyclic nucleotide-activated channel from olfactory neurons", 672 citations *1998 "Identification of ligands for olfactory receptors by functional expression of a receptor library", 534 citations *2002 "Melanopsin-containing retinal ganglion cells: architecture, projections, and intrinsic photosensitivity", 1579 citations *2003 "Melanopsin and rod–cone photoreceptive systems account for all major accessory visual functions in mice", 838 citations *2003 "Diminished pupillary light reflex at high irradiances in melanopsin-knockout mice", 608 citations *2005 "Melanopsin-expressing ganglion cells in primate retina signal colour and irradiance and project to the LGN", 798 citations *2006 "Central projections of melanopsin‐expressing retinal ganglion cells in the mouse", 518 citations

References

External links

Vision Award, Champalimaud Foundation (2008)Alcon Research Award past recipients (1994, 2005)Friedenwald Award, ARVO - Association for Research in Vision & Ophthalmology (1993)King-Wai Yau laboratory web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yau, King-Wai American biophysicists American neuroscientists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 1948 births Living people Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Harvard Medical School alumni Princeton University alumni Physicists from Guangdong People from Guangzhou Chinese emigrants to the United States Chinese neuroscientists Chinese biophysicists Alumni of the University of Hong Kong Hong Kong physicists Johns Hopkins University faculty University of Texas Medical Branch faculty Stanford University alumni Educators from Guangdong Biologists from Guangdong Members of the National Academy of Medicine