Louise Tsi Chow () is a professor of

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

and

molecular genetics Molecular genetics is a sub-field of biology that addresses how differences in the structures or expression of DNA molecules manifests as variation among organisms. Molecular genetics often applies an "investigative approach" to determine the ...

at the

University of Alabama at Birmingham The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is a Public university#United States, public List of research universities in the United States, research university in Birmingham, Alabama. Developed from an academic extension center established i ...

and a foreign associate with 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 ...

, known for her research on the

human papillomavirus Human papillomavirus infection (HPV infection) is caused by a DNA virus from the ''Papillomaviridae'' family. Many HPV infections cause no symptoms and 90% resolve spontaneously within two years. In some cases, an HPV infection persists and res ...

. Her research contributed to the discovery of gene splicing, and in 1993, her collaborator,

Richard J. Roberts Sir Richard John Roberts (born 6 September 1943) is a British biochemist and molecular biology, molecular biologist. He was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Phillip Allen Sharp for the discovery of introns in eukaryo ...

, received the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

for the research, leading some to assert that Chow should have received the honor as well.

Biography

Chow was born in

Hunan Province Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi t ...

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

. Her father Chou Te-wei ( 周德偉) was a well known economist who worked in the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of China on Taiwan. She studied agricultural chemistry at

National Taiwan University National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served d ...

, graduating in 1965 before moving to California to pursue graduate studies in chemistry at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

, earning her Ph.D in 1973. She then undertook post-doctoral training at 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 ...

, researching the monkey tumor virus

SV40 SV40 is an abbreviation for simian vacuolating virus 40 or simian virus 40, a polyomavirus that is found in both monkeys and humans. Like other polyomaviruses, SV40 is a DNA virus that has the potential to cause tumors in animals, but most often ...

. She and her husband, fellow scientist Thomas Broker, joined Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1975. It was here that, in the process of studying the genetic organization, DNA transcription, and RNA translation of adenoviruses, she and her colleagues discovered

RNA splicing RNA splicing is a process in molecular biology where a newly-made precursor messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) transcript is transformed into a mature messenger RNA (mRNA). It works by removing all the introns (non-coding regions of RNA) and ''splicing'' b ...

in 1977. This finding led to her collaborator, Richard Roberts, winning the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Phillip Sharp from MIT whose team independently made the discovery). Many feel that Chow deserved a share of the prize (see Nobel Prize controversy).Anthony Flint (5 November 1993) , Boston Globe. In 1984, she took a job with the University of Rochester School of Medicine, studying the genome of the human papillomavirus (HPV). Chow became a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in 1993, studying genetics and virology, focusing on diseases such as cancer, cystic fibrosis, and AIDS. At UAB, Chow developed a method to produce large amounts of one of the most dominant cancer-causing HPV strains, HPV-18, in the laboratory, enabling her and her team to study HPV's entire replicative cycle.

Nobel Prize controversy

In 1993, her collaborator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory,

, was awarded the Nobel Prize, along with researcher

Phillip Sharp Phillip Allen Sharp (born June 6, 1944) is an American geneticist and molecular biologist who co-discovered RNA splicing. He shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Richard J. Roberts for "the discovery that genes in eukaryo ...

, for the discovery of RNA splicing. Roberts called the award a "tribute" to his co-workers, including Chow. However, other scientists felt that Chow, who operated the electron microscope that allowed researchers to observe the splicing process, should have been included among the scientists awarded the Nobel Prize for the research. Chow told the Boston Globe that her contributions "were not trivial... it was a new type of experiment and needed to be designed and set up."

Key publications

Selected honors

*Foreign Associate of the

, 2012 *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 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chow, Louise Women biochemists Chemists from Hunan National Taiwan University alumni California Institute of Technology alumni University of Alabama at Birmingham faculty Chinese emigrants to the United States Living people Taiwanese people from Hunan Taiwanese women scientists Chinese women biologists Chinese women chemists Taiwanese biochemists Members of Academia Sinica Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Year of birth missing (living people) Educators from Hunan Biologists from Hunan Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology