Wen-Hsiung Li (; born 1942) is a

Taiwanese-American Taiwanese Americans () are Americans who carry full or partial ancestry from Taiwan. This includes American-born citizens who descend from migrants from Taiwan. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, 49% of Taiwanese Americans lived in the state of Califo ...

scientist working in the fields of

molecular evolution Molecular evolution is the process of change in the sequence composition of cellular molecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins across generations. The field of molecular evolution uses principles of evolutionary biology and population genetics ...

population genetics Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and pop ...

, and

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

. He is currently the

James Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and ...

Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

and a Principal Investigator at the Institute of Information Science and Genomics Research Center,

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 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 ...

Biography

Li was born in 1942 in Taiwan. In 1968 he received a M.S. in geophysics from

National Central University National Central University (NCU, ; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: ''Kwet-li̍p Chung-yong Thài-ho̍k'', Wade–Giles: ''Kuo2 Li4 Chung Yang Ta4 Hsüeh2'' or ''中大'', ''Chung-ta'') is a public research university with long-standing traditions based in Taiwa ...

. In 1972 he received his Ph.D in applied mathematics at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

Providence Providence often refers to: * Providentia, the divine personification of foresight in ancient Roman religion * Divine providence, divinely ordained events and outcomes in Christianity * Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of Rhode Island in the ...

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

. From 1972 to 1973 he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin Madison (genetics), working with

James F. Crow James Franklin Crow (January 18, 1916 – January 4, 2012) was Professor Emeritus of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a prominent population geneticist whose career spanned from the modern synthesis to the genomic era. Some o ...

. In 1973 he moved to the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, where he was appointed as a professor in 1984. Since 1998 he has been a professor at

The University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the be ...

Scientific contributions

Professor Li is best known for his studies on the

molecular clock The molecular clock is a figurative term for a technique that uses the mutation rate of biomolecules to deduce the time in prehistory when two or more life forms diverged. The biomolecular data used for such calculations are usually nucleoti ...

(''i.e.'' rates and patterns of DNA sequence evolution) and on the patterns and consequences of

gene duplication Gene duplication (or chromosomal duplication or gene amplification) is a major mechanism through which new genetic material is generated during molecular evolution. It can be defined as any duplication of a region of DNA that contains a gene. ...

. In 2003, he received the international

Balzan Prize The International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organizations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the br ...

for his contribution to

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

and

evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...

, and was elected to 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 ...

, who cited his role in "establishing theoretical foundations for molecular phylogenetics and evolutionary genomic

He is the author of the first texts in the field of

, ''Molecular Evolution'' and ''Fundamentals of Molecular Evolution'' (co-authored with Dan Graur), and an author on more than 200 peer-reviewed publications.

Honors

* Academician,

Taiwan, 1998 * Member,

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 ...

, 1999 * President of the “Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution”, 2000 * Member,

, 2003 *

Balzan prize The International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organizations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the br ...

2003 for genetics and evolution (The third recipient, following

Sewall Wright Sewall Green Wright FRS(For) Honorary FRSE (December 21, 1889March 3, 1988) was an American geneticist known for his influential work on evolutionary theory and also for his work on path analysis. He was a founder of population genetics alongsi ...

(1984) and

John Maynard Smith John Maynard Smith (6 January 1920 – 19 April 2004) was a British theoretical and mathematical evolutionary biologist and geneticist. Originally an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War, he took a second degree in genetics und ...

(1991)). * Inaugural Chen Award for Achievement in Human Genetic and Genomic Research,

Human Genome Organisation The Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) is a non-profit organization founded in 1988. HUGO represents an international coordinating scientific body in response to initiatives such as the Human Genome Project. HUGO has four active committees, includin ...

, 2008 * 2019 SMBE

Motoo Kimura (November 13, 1924 – November 13, 1994) was a Japanese biologist best known for introducing the neutral theory of molecular evolution in 1968. He became one of the most influential theoretical population geneticists. He is remembered in geneti ...

Lifetime Contribution Award

Selected publications

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Selected books

* * p. 865
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References

External links

Lab web site

National Academy of Sciences citationBalzan Foundation profileAcademia Sinica
websit
reference for the HUGO/ "Chen Award"
2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Li, Wen-Hsiung 1942 births American people of Taiwanese descent Evolutionary biologists Living people Theoretical biologists Population geneticists Members of Academia Sinica Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 21st-century biologists American geneticists Taiwanese biologists People from Pingtung County Brown University alumni National Central University alumni University of Chicago faculty