Hsien Wu

Wu Hsien
Wu Hsien
Born	24 November 1893; Fuzhou, Fujian, China
Died	8 August 1959 (aged 65); Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Nationality	China and United States of America
Alma mater	Harvard University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	Scientific career
Fields	Protein science; Biochemistry
Institutions	University of Alabama; Peking Union Medical College

Hsien Wu (simplified Chinese: 吴宪; traditional Chinese: 吳憲; pinyin: Wú Xiàn; 24 November 1893 – 8 August 1959) was a Chinese biochemist and geneticist. He was the first to propose that protein denaturation was a purely conformational change, i.e., corresponded to protein unfolding and not to some chemical alteration of the protein.[1] This crucial idea was popularized later by Linus Pauling and Alfred Mirsky.[2]

Wu was born in Fuzhou, Fujian, China. He studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (undergraduate), and then trained at Harvard University (graduate) under Otto Folin, developing the first assay for blood sugar (Folin-Wu method). Wu then returned to China to a position at Peking Union Medical College, becoming head of the biochemistry department in 1924. At the end of that year, he married his research assistant Daisy Yen and would continue collaborating with her until his death in 1959.[3]

Wu left China in 1947 to reside in the United States.

Wu's son, Ray J. Wu, became the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Molecular Genetics and Biology at Cornell University, and was active in studying transgenic plants, particularly rice.

References

Wu, H (1931). "Studies on Denaturation of Proteins. XIII. A Theory of Denaturation". Chinese Journal of Physiology. 5: 321–344. Preliminary reports were presented before the XIIIth International Congress of Physiology at Boston (19–24 August 1929) and in the October 1929 issue of the American Journal of Physiology.
Mirsky, AE; Pauling L (1936). "On the Structure of Native, Denatured, and Coagulated Proteins" (PDF). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 22 (7): 439–447. Bibcode:1936PNAS...22..439M. doi:10.1073/pnas.22.7.439. PMC 1076802. PMID 16577722.
曹 (Cao), 育 (Yu) (7 March 2008). 屈 (Qu), 宝坤 (Baokun) (ed.). "最早在国内从事生物化学研究的女学者——吴严彩韵" [Daisy Yen Wu—The First Woman Scholar in China Engaged in Biochemical Research]. 中国科技史料 (in Chinese). Beijing: Institute of the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Chinese Library Classification Number K826.1. Archived from the original on 10 September 2012. Retrieved 4 October 2020.