Mu-ming Poo (; born October 31, 1948) is a Chinese-American

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial ...

. He is the Paul Licht Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and the Founding Director of the

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

-based Institute of Neuroscience (ION) of the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republi ...

. He was awarded the 2016

Gruber Prize in Neuroscience The Gruber Prize in Neuroscience, established in 2004, is one of three international awards worth US$500,000 made by the Gruber Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The Gruber Prize in Neurosc ...

for his pioneering work on

synaptic plasticity In neuroscience, synaptic plasticity is the ability of synapses to strengthen or weaken over time, in response to increases or decreases in their activity. Since memories are postulated to be represented by vastly interconnected neural circuits ...

. At ION, Poo led a team of scientists that produced the world's first truly cloned primates, a pair of

crab-eating macaques The crab-eating macaque (''Macaca fascicularis''), also known as the long-tailed macaque and referred to as the cynomolgus monkey in laboratories, is a cercopithecinae, cercopithecine primate native to Southeast Asia. A species of macaque, the cr ...

called Zhongzhong and Huahua in 2017, using

somatic cell nuclear transfer In genetics and developmental biology, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is a laboratory strategy for creating a viable embryo from a body cell and an egg cell. The technique consists of taking an enucleated oocyte (egg cell) and implanting a ...

(SCNT).

Early life

Poo was born in

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its ca ...

, China on October 31, 1948. When he was one, his family moved to Taiwan because of the

Chinese Communist Revolution The Chinese Communist Revolution, officially known as the Chinese People's War of Liberation in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and also known as the National Protection War against the Communist Rebellion in the Republic of China (ROC ...

. Influenced by his father, an

aeronautical engineer Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is sim ...

, he was interested in physics from a young age. He attended

National Tsing Hua University National Tsing Hua University (NTHU; ) is a public research university in Hsinchu City, Taiwan. National Tsing Hua University was first founded in Beijing. After the Chinese Civil War, the then-president of the university, Mei Yiqi, and othe ...

in Taiwan, graduating with a degree in physics in 1970.

Career in the US

In 1970, he went to the United States to pursue graduate studies at

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

, where he became interested in

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...

. Under the guidance of Richard Cone, he developed the now widely used method to determine the kinetics of diffusion through cells,

fluorescence recovery after photobleaching Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) is a method for determining the kinetics of diffusion through tissue or cells. It is capable of quantifying the two dimensional lateral diffusion of a molecularly thin film containing fluorescently ...

. His research was published in the major journal ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'' in 1974. After earning his PhD, he was a

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...

, and became an assistant professor at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

in 1976. He developed a new method to manipulate proteins in

cell membrane The cell membrane (also known as the plasma membrane (PM) or cytoplasmic membrane, and historically referred to as the plasmalemma) is a biological membrane that separates and protects the interior of all cells from the outside environment ( ...

s called "''in situ'' electrophoresis". In 1985, he moved to the

Yale School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary te ...

to conduct research in proteins and synapses. Later he became a professor at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and then at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

in 1996. During this period he made significant discoveries in molecular neurobiology that developed into a new study area on

neurotrophins Neurotrophins are a family of proteins that induce the survival, development, and function of neurons. They belong to a class of growth factors, secreted proteins that can signal particular cells to survive, differentiate, or grow. Growth facto ...

. Poo and his colleagues also invented a new method called the "growth cone turning assay", now widely in neuroscience for measuring

axon An axon (from Greek ἄξων ''áxōn'', axis), or nerve fiber (or nerve fibre: see spelling differences), is a long, slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, in vertebrates, that typically conducts electrical impulses known as action p ...

growth in reaction to proteins. He moved to the

in 2000, where he later became Paul Licht Distinguished Professor in Biology. At Berkeley, he made many new discoveries in understanding the factors that determine the development of axons and

dendrites Dendrites (from Greek δένδρον ''déndron'', "tree"), also dendrons, are branched protoplasmic extensions of a nerve cell that propagate the electrochemical stimulation received from other neural cells to the cell body, or soma, of the ...

neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa. ...

s. He also made important discoveries in

, demonstrating that

spike-timing-dependent plasticity Spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) is a biological process that adjusts the strength of connections between neurons in the brain. The process adjusts the connection strengths based on the relative timing of a particular neuron's output and in ...

plays a crucial role in neuron connections.

Career in China

In 1999, Poo co-founded the

-based Institute of Neuroscience (ION) of the

and served as its director. For the following decade, he commuted frequently between Berkeley and Shanghai, until the constant traveling took a toll and he decided to focus on his work in Shanghai. He is now a

professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

at UC Berkeley. In 2017, he gave up his American citizenship, which he had acquired in the 1980s, and reinstated his Chinese citizenship. At ION, Poo led a team of Chinese scientists that produced the world's first truly cloned primates, a pair of

called

Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua Zhong Zhong (, born 27 November 2017) and Hua Hua (, born 5 December 2017) are a pair of identical crab-eating macaques (also referred to as cynomolgus monkeys) that were created through somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), the same cloning te ...

in late 2017, using

(the technique used to create

Dolly the sheep Dolly (5 July 1996 – 14 February 2003) was a female Finnish Dorset sheep and the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell. She was cloned by associates of the Roslin Institute in Scotland, using the process of nuclear transfer from a ...

) rather than embryo twinning. According to Poo, the principal significance of this event is that it could be used to create genetically identical monkeys for use in animal experiments. Crab-eating macaques are already an established model organism for studies of

atherosclerosis Atherosclerosis is a pattern of the disease arteriosclerosis in which the wall of the artery develops abnormalities, called lesions. These lesions may lead to narrowing due to the buildup of atheromatous plaque. At onset there are usually no s ...

, though Poo chose to emphasize

neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...

, naming

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

and Alzheimer's disease when he appeared on the radio news program ''

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

'' in January 2018.* Poo compares his career to a "random walk": "When I bump into an interesting problem, I work on it for as long as I can contribute. Then I move on."

Honors and awards

Poo is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the

, Academia Sinica of Taiwan, and the Hong Kong Academy of Sciences. In 2016, he was awarded the $500,000

for his "pioneering and inspiring work on

". He is also the recipient of the following awards: *

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected ...

(AAAS, 2001) * Ameritec Prize (2001) * Ray Wu Society Award (2002) * Honorary Doctoral Degree,

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, S ...

, Paris (2003) * National Prize for International Cooperation, China (2005) * Qiushi Excellent Scientist Award, China (2010) * Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize,

(2011) * Honorary Doctoral Degree,

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) is a public research university in Clear Water Bay Peninsula, New Territories, Hong Kong. Founded in 1991 by the British Hong Kong Government, it was the territory's third institut ...

(2014)

Personal life

Poo married a fellow Taiwanese immigrant to the US, chemist and oncologist Wen-jen Hwu, and they later divorced. They have two daughters: Ting and Ai-jen.

Ai-jen Poo Ai-jen Poo (, ; born 1974) is an American labor activist. She is the president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. She is also the director of Caring Across Generations, a national coalition of 200 advocacy organizations working to tran ...

(born 1974) is a social activist and writer who won the MacArthur "Genius" Award in 2014. Ting Poo is a filmmaker who was the editor of '' Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405'', which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in 2017. Poo married again, to Yang Dan, his former student at Columbia University. Dan is also a distinguished neuroscientist who was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2018.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poo, Mu-ming 1948 births Living people Chinese neuroscientists American neuroscientists American people of Chinese descent National Tsing Hua University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Purdue University alumni University of California, Irvine faculty Columbia University faculty University of California, San Diego faculty Yale University faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Members of Academia Sinica Taiwanese emigrants to the United States Taiwanese people from Jiangsu Scientists from Nanjing Former United States citizens Biologists from Jiangsu Educators from Nanjing Chinese Civil War refugees