Chi-Huey Wong 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 ...

biochemist. He is currently the Scripps Family Chair Professor at the

Scripps Research Institute Scripps Research, previously known as The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), is a nonprofit American medical research facility that focuses on research and education in the biomedical sciences. Headquartered in San Diego, California, the institu ...

, California in the Department of Chemistry. He is a member of the United States

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 ...

, won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry and the RSC Robert Robinson Award. and has published more than 700 papers and holds more than 100 patents.

Education

Wong received his BS and MS in Biochemical Sciences from

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 ...

in Taipei, followed by his PhD in chemistry in 1982 at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

under the direction of Professor

George M. Whitesides George McClelland Whitesides (born August 3, 1939) is an American chemist and professor of chemistry at Harvard University. He is best known for his work in the areas of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, molecula ...

to study the use of enzymes as catalysts in

organic synthesis Organic synthesis is a special branch of chemical synthesis and is concerned with the intentional construction of organic compounds. Organic molecules are often more complex than inorganic compounds, and their synthesis has developed into one o ...

Research and career

Wong continued his postdoctoral research work with

Harvard University 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 ...

from 1982 to 1983, then began his independent career at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

in the Chemistry Department. During his tenure at

, he went through the ranks including assistant professor, associate professor, and professor of chemistry. Wong was appointed as the Ernest W. Hahn Chair and Professor of Chemistry at the

and while he was a faculty member at Scripps, he also served as head of the Frontier Research Program on Glycotechnology at Riken in Japan and Director of the Genomics Research Center at

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 ...

, and was later appointed by the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) as the President of Academia Sinica. Now, he is serving at the Scripps Research Institute as Scripps Family Chair Professor of Chemistry. Wong is best known for his original contributions to glycoscience, especially his development of chemo-enzymatic methods for the practical synthesis of

oligosaccharide An oligosaccharide (/ˌɑlɪgoʊˈsækəˌɹaɪd/; from the Greek ὀλίγος ''olígos'', "a few", and σάκχαρ ''sácchar'', "sugar") is a saccharide polymer containing a small number (typically two to ten) of monosaccharides (simple sugar ...

s and

glycoprotein Glycoproteins are proteins which contain oligosaccharide chains covalently attached to amino acid side-chains. The carbohydrate is attached to the protein in a cotranslational or posttranslational modification. This process is known as glycos ...

s and the hierarchical and programmable one-pot synthesis method for the rapid preparation of a large number of oligosaccharides. The original synthetic methods developed by Wong along with his work on the development of glycan microarrays for the high-throughput analysis of protein-carbohydrate interaction and the design of

glycosylation Glycosylation is the reaction in which a carbohydrate (or ' glycan'), i.e. a glycosyl donor, is attached to a hydroxyl or other functional group of another molecule (a glycosyl acceptor) in order to form a glycoconjugate. In biology (but not al ...

probes have enabled not only the fundamental study of glycosylation in biology but also the clinical development of carbohydrate-based medicines, including vaccines and homogeneous antibodies for the treatment of cancers and

infectious diseases An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable dise ...

. In 2016, there was a media report, speculating that he was possibly involved in an insider trading scandal related to a biotech company

OBI Pharma, Inc. OBI Pharma, Inc. () () is a bio-pharmaceutical company, based in Nangang District, Taipei, 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 northwe ...

headquartered in Taiwan, because his adult daughter had held shares in OBI Pharma. When the allegations surfaced in March 2016, Wong was in the United States. He was quite disappointed by the false report and attempted to resign his position as president of the Academia Sinica twice. Both requests were rejected by the president of Taiwan,

Ma Ying-jeou Ma Ying-jeou ( zh, 馬英九, born 13 July 1950) is a Hong Kong-born Taiwanese politician who served as president of the Republic of China from 2008 to 2016. Previously, he served as justice minister from 1993 to 1996 and mayor of Taipei from ...

. After further consideration, Ma chose to approve Wong's resignation on 10 May. In February 2018, the Shilin District Prosecutors Office announced that charges of insider trading against Wong had been dropped, though an investigation into a possible failure in disclosing his assets during tech transfer of his invention had not yet concluded by the Control Yuan. In April 2022, the Control Yuan publicly announced that Wong did not violate any rule.

Awards and honors

*1985 - Searle Scholar Award *1986 -

Presidential Young Investigator Award The Presidential Young Investigator Award (PYI) was awarded by the National Science Foundation of the United States Federal Government. The program operated from 1984 to 1991, and was replaced by the NSF Young Investigator (NYI) Awards and Presiden ...

in Chemistry *1994 - IUPAC International Carbohydrate Award *1998 - Harrison Howe Award,

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...

*1999 - International Enzyme Engineering Award *1999 - Claude S. Hudson Award,

*2000 - United States Presidential Green Chemistry Award *2005 - American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry *2008 - F.A. Cotton Medal for Excellence in Chemical Research *2012 -

Arthur C. Cope Award The Arthur C. Cope Award is a prize awarded for achievement in the field of organic chemistry research. It is sponsored by the Arthur C. Cope Fund, and has been awarded annually since 1973 by the American Chemical Society. It consists of $25,000, ...

by the

. *2014 -

Wolf Prize in Chemistry The Wolf Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation and awarded since 1978; the others are in Agriculture, Mathematics, Medicine, Physics and Arts. Laure ...

*2015 - Robert Robinson Award,

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Ro ...

*2021 -

Welch Award in Chemistry The Welch Award in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Robert A. Welch Foundation, based in Houston, Texas, to encourage and recognise basic chemical research for the benefit of mankind. The award, which has been given since 1972, is one of the ...

*2022 -

Chemical Pioneer Award The Chemical Pioneer Award, established in 1966, is awarded by the American Institute of Chemists to recognize chemists or chemical engineers who have made outstanding contributions to advances in chemistry or the chemical profession. Recent rec ...

of the

American Institute of Chemists The American Institute of Chemists (AIC) is an organization founded in 1923 with the goal of advancing the chemistry profession in the United States. The institute is known for its yearly awards recognizing contributions of individuals in this fie ...

Memberships

Wong was elected as a member of the

in 1994, the American Academy of Arts and Science in 1996, the

United States 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 ...

in 2002, the World Academy of Sciences in 2007, the United States National Academy of Inventors in 2014, and also an Associate Member of the

European Molecular Biology Organization The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 1,800 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

in 2010.

Bibliography

* Enzymes in Synthetic Organic Chemistry. Pergamon Press. 1994. * Carbohydrate Based Drug Discovery. Wiley Online Library. 2003. * Current Status and New Challenges in Glycoscience. Springer.

Patents

Wong obtained many patents for his inventions. His representative patents include Globo-H and related anti-cancer vaccines with novel glycolipid adjuvants (US9,603,913B2), Glycan arrays on PTFE-like aluminum coated glass slides and related methods (US8,680,020), Methods and compositions for immunization against virus (US8.741,311), Large scale enzymatic synthesis of oligosaccharides (US9,340,812), Methods for modifying human antibodies by glycan engineering (US10, 087,236), Compositions and methods relating to universal glycoforms for enhanced antibody efficacy (US10,023892), Crystal structure of bifunctional transglycosylase PBP1b from

E. Coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...

and inhibitors thereof (US9890111B2), Quantitative analysis of carbohydrate-protein interactions using glycan microarrays: determination of surface and solution dissociation constants (US-8906832-B2), Antibiotic compositions and related screening methods (US8916540B2), Hirsutella Sinensis mycelia compositions and methods for treating sepsis and related inflammatory responses (US8486914B2), and Tailored glycoproteomic methods for the sequencing, mapping and identification of cellular glycoproteins (US7943330B2).

References

External links

Chi-Huey Wong's researchChi-Huey Wong – Semantic ScholarChi-Huey Wong – Google Scholar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wong, Chi-Huey 1948 births Living people American biochemists Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Members of Academia Sinica Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences National Taiwan University alumni People from Chiayi County Scripps Research faculty Taiwanese biochemists Taiwanese emigrants to the United States Texas A&M University faculty Winners of the Nikkei Asia Prize