Hao Wu (biochemist)

Hao Wu (吴皓) is a Chinese American biochemist and crystallographer. Currently she is Asa and Patricia Springer Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School.[1] She has dedicated in elucidation of molecular mechanism of signal transduction in cell death and inflammation for decades. She has made seminal discoveries including signalosome, large protein complex in cell death, innate and adaptive immune pathways. Her major scientific contribution is that she established a new paradigm of signal transduction mediated through higher-order assemblies.[2] She has won numerous scientific awards for her scientific contributions including Pew Scholar Award, Rita Allen Scholar Award, Margaret Dayhoff Memorial Award, Mayor's Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, NIH merit Award, and Purdue University Distinguished Science Alumni Award. She was elected as AAAS fellow in 2013 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2014.[3]

Early life and education

Wu was born in an intellectual family with her parents serving as professors in Beijing, China. Her parents spared every efforts to provide her good education in her childhood, in particular during the period of "Culture Revolution". She attended the National Math Olympiad in 1981 and was admitted to Peking Union Medical College with the highest entering grades in 1982. She received 3 years' pre-medical education at Peking University, one of the best universities in China. After that she received medical education at Peking Union Medical College and had outstanding academic achievement. At Peking Union Medical College, she also got a chance to receive some preliminary research training and was deeply attracted by the fun in basic research. Instead of spending another 2 years to earn her M.D. degree at Peking Union Medical College, she came to the U.S.A. and joined a Ph.D program at Purdue University in Indiana state. She earned her Ph.D. degree in 1992 from Purdue University with the supervision of Prof. Michael Rossmann, a pioneer crystallographer.[4] Then she moved to New York city and performed her postdoc work in Prof. Wayne Hendrickson's lab at Columbia University.

Career

Following her postdoctoral work, she stated her own lab as an assistant professor in Department of Biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medical College in 1997. She was promoted to associate professor in 2001 and then professor in 2003. She relocated to Boson in 2012 and became Asa and Patricia Springer Professor of Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School and the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital.[1]

Research

Her research focused on elucidation of molecular mechanism in cell death and inflammation mainly through biochemical and biophysical methods. Her lab has determined numerous large protein complexes structures in immune signaling pathways including PIDDosome, Myddosome, IKK-beta, Inflammasome, synaptic RAG1-RAG2 complexes et. al. Through these serial studies, she made a conceptual breakthrough in signal transduction, a mechanism mediated by higher-order oligomer assembly.

References

  1. 1 2 "Wu Lab: Home". wulab.tch.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2016-11-30.
  2. ↑ Wu, Hao (2013-04-11). "Higher-Order Assemblies in a New Paradigm of Signal Transduction". Cell. 153 (2): 287–292. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2013.03.013. ISSN 0092-8674. PMC 3687143Freely accessible. PMID 23582320.
  3. ↑ "Harvard faculty elected to NAS". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 2016-11-30.
  4. ↑ "Rossmann's Lab". bilbo.bio.purdue.edu. Retrieved 2016-11-30.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/1/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.