Wei Yang (biologist)
Wei Yang (Chinese: 杨薇; pinyin: Yáng Wēi; born 1963) is a Chinese-American structural biologist. She is a distinguished investigator at the National Institutes of Health and was elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2013.
Early life and education
[edit]Yang was born in Shanghai, China in 1963.[1] She entered Fudan University in 1980, before transferring to Stony Brook University in the United States in 1983, where she earned her B.A. degree.[2][3] She earned her M.A. (1985) and Ph.D. (1991) in Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics from Columbia University.[4]
Career and research
[edit]Since 1995 she has been a senior scientist in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the National Institutes of Health. Her research mainly focuses on DNA mismatch repair, translesion synthesis, and V(D)J recombination.[2][4] Her lab discovered that DNA synthesis and RNA degradation reactions are propelled by cation trafficking and require transiently bound Mg²⁺ and K⁺ ions that are absent in the static structures of substrate- or product-enzyme complexes.[4]
Awards and honors
[edit]In 2011, the Protein Society honored Yang with the Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2013[2] and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015.[4] She has naturalized as a US citizen.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ "杨薇" (in Chinese). Fudan University. Retrieved 2018-10-16.
- ^ a b c d "Wei Yang". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
- ^ "美国科学院女院士杨薇:事业家庭可以双赢". Sciencenet. 2014-09-03. Retrieved 2018-10-16.
- ^ a b c d "Dr. Wei Yang". National Institutes of Health. Retrieved 15 October 2018. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- 1963 births
- Living people
- American women biologists
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Biologists from Shanghai
- Columbia University alumni
- American people of Chinese descent
- People's Republic of China emigrants to the United States
- Chinese women biologists
- National Institutes of Health faculty
- Fudan University alumni
- Stony Brook University alumni
- 20th-century Chinese scientists
- 21st-century Chinese scientists
- 20th-century American biologists
- 21st-century American biologists
- Chinese expatriate academics in the United States
- 20th-century American women scientists
- 21st-century American women scientists
- Structural biologists
- Naturalized citizens of the United States