Ithaca, New York
February 14, 2008
Ray J. Wu,
Cornell Univeristy
professor of molecular biology and genetics, who was widely
recognized as one of the fathers of plant genetic engineering,
from which sprang the development of a high-yielding rice that
resists insects and drought, died at Cayuga Medical Center in
Ithaca Feb. 10. He was 79.
The cause of death was cardiac arrest.
In 1970 Wu developed the first method for sequencing DNA and
some of the fundamental tools for DNA cloning (sequencing
involves determining the base sequence in a DNA molecule). After
several innovative modifications by other scientists to greatly
speed up the process, the same strategy is still being used
today and led to the DNA sequence determination of the entire
genomes of rice and humans, among other organisms -- helping
scientists to understand different genetic traits.
Born in China and educated in the United States, Wu was a
scientific adviser to the governments of both China and Taiwan.
As such he exerted great influence on U.S.-Chinese cooperation
in biological science and education.
At Cornell, in 1999 he committed to a gift of $500,000 to
establish the Ray Wu Graduate Fellowship in Molecular Biology
and Genetics to support a first-year graduate student. He funded
the gift over the next five years to create a permanent
endowment to support one graduate student each year in the field
of molecular biology and genetics.
In the mid-1990s, Wu and his group genetically engineered and
successfully field-tested pest-resistant rice plants, marking
the first time that useful genes were successfully transferred
from a dicotyledonous plant (potato) to a monocotyledonous
plant, in this case, rice. The potato genes caused the rice
plants to produce a protein that interferes with the attacking
insects' digestive process. Thus, insects such as the pink stem
borer eat less and grow less quickly, and plant damage is
reduced. A barley gene enabled rice plants to produce a protein
that makes them salt- and drought-resistant so that they grow in
saline conditions and recover quickly from dry conditions.
In 2002 Wu and his colleagues demonstrated another strategy to
genetically engineer rice and other crops to make them more
tolerant of drought, salt and temperature stresses, while
bolstering yields.
The study showed stress tolerance by introducing the genes for
trehalose (sugar) synthesis into Indica rice varieties, which
represent 80 percent of rice grown worldwide and include the
widely eaten basmati rice. Wu and his colleagues said the newer
strategy could work for Japonica rice varieties, and other
crops, including corn, wheat, millet, soybeans and sugar cane.
Wu joined the Cornell faculty in 1966, as an associate professor
of biochemistry and molecular biology, became a professor in
1972, and in 2004 was named a Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor
Molecular Biology and Genetics. He served as department chair
(1976-1978) in Cornell's Section of Biochemistry, Molecular and
Cell Biology. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, he was a
Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow, working under Efraim Racker,
at the Public Health Research Institute of the City of New York.
He has also worked at Stanford University and the University of
Pennsylvania. He was a National Science Foundation Senior Fellow
at the Medical Research Council Laboratory in Cambridge,
England, and a visiting associate professor in the Department of
Biology and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
While on sabbatical leave from Cornell in 1989, Wu was director
of the Institute of Molecular Biology of Academia Sinica in
Taipei, Taiwan. He also served as an honorary professor and
later as an adjunct professor at Peking University.
Wu founded the China-United States Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology Examination and Application program, which from 1982 to
1989, brought over 400 of the top Chinese students to the U.S.
for graduate training, and produced more than 100 faculty
members in major universities or key members in industry. These
scientists, with colleagues from the Chinese Academy of
Sciences, formed the Ray Wu Society to promote life sciences
frontiers.
Among other advisory roles to both the Chinese and Taiwanese
governments, Wu was instrumental in establishing the Institute
of Molecular Biology, the Institute of Bioagricultural Sciences
of Academia Sinica in Taiwan, and the National Institute of
Biological Sciences in Beijing, and he held several honorary
professorships at Chinese universities and research institutes.
Wu was elected a fellow of the American Academy for the
Advancement of Science in 2003; and elected a fellow in the
Chinese Academy of Engineering. He was given the prestigious
Frank Annunzio Award in Science and Technology in 2002, which is
presented by the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation.
Between 1982 and 1995 he served as scientific adviser to the
China National Center for Biotechnology Development; chairman,
Scientific Advisory Committee of the Institute of
BioAgricultural Sciences, Taiwan; chairman, Advisory Committee
to the Transgenic Plant Program, National Science Council,
Taiwan, and chairman, Board of Scientific Advisers of the
International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology.
Born in Beijing on Aug. 14, 1928, Wu came to the United States
in 1948 at the urging of his father who at the time was
attending professional meetings in San Francisco. He earned his
bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Alabama,
Tuscaloosa, in 1950; and then earned his doctoral degree in
biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955. Wu
became a naturalized United States citizen in February 1961.
He is survived by his wife, Christina, and two children, Albert
Wu '80, M.D. '84, and Alice Wu '82, M.S. '86, and three
grandchildren. |
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