Shang Fa Yang
Shang Fa Yang was a Taiwanese-American biochemist and botanist specializing in agricultural chemistry. He was a professor at the University of California, Davis. He was awarded the 1991 Wolf Prize in Agriculture and was elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences the year before.
Early life and education
Yang was born in 1932 in Taiwan, the youngest of twelve children of Chian-Zuai Yang, a sugarcane producer turned miller. Shang Fa Yang never learned his exact date of birth, but surmised it fell between late October and early November, and chose to celebrate his birthday on November 10. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in agricultural chemistry from National Taiwan University in 1956 and 1958, respectively. He subsequently moved to the United States and completed his doctoral degree in plant biochemistry from Utah State University in 1962.Career
After completing his PhD, he conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Davis, New York Medical School, and University of California, San Diego. He joined the University of California, Davis faculty in 1966.Yang was known for his research that unlocked the key to prolonging freshness in fruits and flowers. His research focused on how plants produce ethylene, which is important in regulating a host of plant functions, ranging from seed germination to fruit ripening. He studied the pathway of ethylene biosynthesis and proved unequivocally the central role of methionine as a precursor of ethylene. He discovers that this process is cyclic and therefore receives the name "Yang Cycle". Ethylene represents one of the five major hormones affecting plant development and maturation.
He was the first scientist to report S-adenosylmethionine as an intermediate in methionine conversion to ethylene. Then, in 1979, he discovered aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid as an intermediate. His discovery of ACC-synthase opened the way to the understanding of the regulating process of ethylene biosynthesis.
Yang retired from University of California, Davis in 1994, and conducted research with Academia Sinica until 1999. He was vice president of Academia Sinica from 1996 to 1999.
Yang died on February 12, 2007, in a Davis hospital from complications of pneumonia. After his death, Academia Sinica began hosting the Shang-Fa Yang Memorial Lecture.