Ray Wu
Ray Jui Wu was a Chinese-born American geneticist and served as Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Molecular Genetics and Biology at Cornell University.
In 1970, Wu created the first approach for DNA sequencing, earlier than the Frederick Sanger's method in 1975 and Walter Gilbert's chemical procedure in 1977. Wu's contributions on DNA sequencing are fundamental to the general sequencing methods today.
Biography
Wu was the son of Hsien and Daisy Yen Wu, both biologists who pioneered biochemical studies in China. Wu was born in Beijing in China; his ancestral hometown was Fuzhou of Fujian Province. Wu was educated in the United States and obtained his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955.Wu was a pioneer 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. 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, and a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Wu's former student Jack W. Szostak was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.