Ray Jui Wu (, 14 August 1928 – 10 February 2008) was a Chinese-born American geneticist. A pioneer of plant genetic engineering, Wu was Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Molecular Genetics and Biology at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

Biography

Wu was the son of Hsien and Daisy Yen Wu, both biologists who pioneered biochemical studies in China. Wu was born in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

in China; his

ancestral hometown An ancestral home is the place of origin of one's extended family, particularly the home owned and preserved by the same family for several generations. The term can refer to an individual house or estate, or to a broader geographic area such as a ...

was Fuzhou of

Fujian Province Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its cap ...

. Wu was educated in the United States and obtained his Ph.D. in

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 ...

from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1955. Wu did important work in DNA sequencing and genetic engineering, and is regarded as one of the founding fathers of plant genetic engineering. Wu also was an active educator, and created the CUSBEA (China-US Biochemistry Examination and Application). In 1999, at Cornell, Wu donated US $500,000 to establish the ''Ray Wu Graduate Fellowship'' in Molecular Biology and Genetics to support biology graduate students. Wu spent most of his scientific career at Cornell. Wu was an Academician of Academia Sinica (

Taiwan 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 nort ...

), and a Foreign Member of the

Chinese Academy of Engineering The Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE, ) is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for engineering. It was established in 1994 and is an institution of the State Council of China. The CAE and the Chinese Academy of Sciences ...

. Wu's former student

Jack W. Szostak Jack William Szostak (born November 9, 1952) is a Canadian American biologist of Polish British descent, Nobel Prize laureate, university professor at the University of Chicago, former Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and Alexan ...

was awarded the 2009

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...

.The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009
/ref>

Ray Wu Memorial Fund

The Ray Wu Memorial Fund (RWMF) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. RWMF administers the annual Ray Wu Prize for Excellence in Life Sciences that is established to inspire Asia's most promising young Ph.D. students to become future leaders in life sciences. For more details, visit the websit
raywumemorialfund

References

External links

Ray Wu Memorial Symposium

Ray Wu Faculty Profile
@ Cornell University Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics {{DEFAULTSORT:Wu, Ray 1928 births 2008 deaths 20th-century American biologists 20th-century American educators American geneticists Biologists from Beijing Chinese emigrants to the United States Cornell University faculty Educators from Beijing Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering Members of Academia Sinica Plant geneticists University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences alumni