Profile of Dr. Shaojun Liu

正Dr. Shao-Jun Liu is an expert in fish genetic breeding, who was born in 1962 in Changsha, Hunan province, China. He received his B.S. in biology in 1986 and his M.S. in zoology in 1989 at Hunan Normal University. He obtained his Ph.D.in zoology in 2000 at Sun Yat-sen University. From 1998 to1999, he was supported by the China Scholarship Council to research fish molecular biology in France. In 2019, he was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and currently, he is a Professor at Hunan Normal University and the Director of the State Key Laboratory of the Developmental Biology of Freshwater Fish.     

Ke Hsin Kuo:A distinguished scientist and great mentor

Early years Professor Ke Hsin Kuo was bom in Beijing in 1923,and his childhood was spent in Harbin in northemstem China where his father worked as an engineer to build the local railroad.His early education was at best characterized by frequent disruptions,the first of which being the"9.18 Incidenf of 1931 when the Japanese Kwantung Army launched an assault in Shenyang(Mukden)on the local Chinese troops and quickly took control of all the Northeastern Provinces(Manchuria).He moved to Tianjin in the spring of 1936,where he continued his education by enrolling in the famous Nankai High School.However,his school life at Nankai was soon disrupted again by the eruption of full-scale war in July of 1937 after Japan attacked and occupied Peking.Together with his brothers,he fled to join his parents who had previously relocated to Chongqing.He studied in Chongqing for four more years to complete his high school education,during which classes were constantly being disrupted due to the frequent bombings of the city by Japanese airplanes.These bombings not only left him with long lasting memories of the war,but also bore him a permanent burn scar on his back as a result of a bomb that exploded just meters away from him.     

CHERISHING THE MEMORY OF PROFESSOR CHIU WEI-FAN AND HIS GREAT CONTRIBUTION TO MYCOLOGY

CHIU Wei-Fan (1912~2000), an outstanding scientist and professor, came from Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, People's Republic of China. Specializing in plant pathology he received his Bachelor of Agronomy at Nanking University in 1935 and his Doctor of Philosophy at the Graduate School of Wisconsin University, USA in 1948. He had honor to be elected as Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980. He had a good command of six foreign languages. His profound knowledge of fore…     

Jure Piskur (1960—2014)

<正>Following a short struggle against an aggressive cancer,Prof.Jure Piskur(Fig.1),a professor of molecular genetics at Lund University(LU),Sweden,and the University of Nova Gorica(UNG),Slovenia,died in his home in Lund on 18 May 2014.He leaves behind his lifelong partner and wife,Judita Gartner,and their sons,Jan and Jure.Jure Piskur was born in 1960 in Slovenia,at that time part of Yugoslavia.Even when Jure’s research led him to many countries and the last quarter of a century to Scandinavia,he always kept close contact with his home country.He was proud to have participated in the Slovenian independence movement,which led to its international recognition as a sovereign state in     

Profile of Dr. Jia Fan

<正>Dr.Jia Fan,MD,is the President of Zhongshan Hospital,Professor at the Department of Liver Surgery,Chairman of the Shanghai Association of Liver Disease,and Deputy Chief of the Liver Cancer Institute at Fudan University.He received his MS degree from Medical College of Southeast University in 1988 and PhD degree from Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University in 1995.He was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center from 1999 to 2000.Further,his cancer research has     

Thoughts of a travelling ecologist,7 In memoriam Tibor Jermy

正My former colleague,Tibor Jermy,Hungarian entomologist,died recently,at the age of 97.He was the Director at the Plant Protection Institute in Hungary when I started my research career-many years ago-as a young scientist.That same year,having reached retirement age,he gladly resigned from the directorship and returned to the workbench,to continue a productive research career for another ca.30 years,before he had to give up work in the laboratory,due to his decli-     

Ray Wu, as remembered by a former student

Some 35 years ago, I had the good fortune to be ac-cepted into Ray Wu’s lab as a graduate student. Ray was already well known for his pioneering studies in DNA se-quencing, and his lab was quietly humming with the ex-citement of the new approaches being developed for DNA labeling, sequencing and synthesis. Looking back, I am somewhat surprised that Ray accepted me into his lab-I was     

Professor Haowen Xu:The founder of exercise biochemistry in China

Professor Haowen Xu(许豪文,1935-2004) was a famous sports scientist and the founder of Exercise Biochemistry in China (Fig.1).He dedicated his life to the study of sports science and made tremendous contributions to the formation and growth of the field of Exercise Biochemistry in China.He was the first to use theories of exercise biochemistry and sports medicine to guide athletes' training and competition in China (Yu,2006).     

Endogenous DNA Damage and Repair Enzymes—A short summary of the scientific achievements of Tomas Lindahl,Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2015

Tomas Lindahl completed his medical studies at Karolinska Institute in 1970. Yet, his work has always been dedicated to unraveling fundamental mechanisms of DNA decay and DNA repair. His research is characterized with groundbreaking discoveries on the instability of our genome, the identification of novel DNA repair activities, the characterization of DNA repair pathways, and the association to diseases, throughout his 40 years of scientific career.     

Profile of Dr. Yao-Guang Liu

<正>Dr. Yao-Guang Liu was born in March 1954, in Guangdong China. He received his Bachelor’s degree in agricultural science from South China Agricultural University (SCAU)in 1982. He received his Master’s degree in agricultural science in 1988 from Kagawa University and Ph.D. in 1991from Kyoto University in Japan. He worked in the Mitsui Plant Biotechnology Research Institute, Japan, from 1991 to1996, and has been a professor at SCAU since 1997. He serves as vice director of the State Key Laboratory of Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agricultural Bioresources.     

Book Review: Longhorned Woodboring Beetles (Coleoptera:Cerambycidae and Disteniidae): Primary Types of the Smithsonian Institution (edited by S.W.Lingafelter et al.,Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press,Washington D.C.,USA.2014, 390 pages)

This book was written by five authors.I had met two of them, the first and third author.The first author, Steven Wayne Lingafelter, is a research entomologist with the Systematic Entomology Laboratory, USDA, based at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History.He has specialized on longhorned woodboring beetles for almost three decades and currently specializes on the Neotropical fauna.He was a former editor of the Coleopterists Bulletin and ZooKeys.The third author, Gérard Luc Tavakilian, was retired but is currently Attaché au Laboratoire d'Entomologie du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris.He is an expert on the fauna of French Guiana in South America.He spends most of his time adding data to the Titan database (http://lis-02.snv.jussieu.fr/titan/), which is the most important and useful database of Longhomed beetles in the world.     

Profile of Dr.Xu Zhang

正Dr.Xu Zhang was conferred the Bachelor's degree of Medicine from Fourth Military Medical University in 1985.From 1990 to 1994,he carried out his Ph.D.study at the Department of Neuroscience,Karolinska Institute in Sweden.Then,he was appointed as lecturer,associate professor and professor successively at the Institute of Neuroscience,Fourth Military Medical University.In 1999,he was recruited as a principal investigator by the Institute of Neuroscience,Chinese Academy of Science.He received the outstanding young investigator award of National Natural Science Foundation of China in 1995.He was elected as Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015.     

THE THREE G's Meeting the Invertebrate Cell Culture Pioneers: Goldschmidt, Gaw, and Grace

It was my good fortune to meet personally the three invertebrate cell culture pioneers,Richard Goldschmidt,Zan-Yin Gaw,and Thomas D.C.Grace (Fig.1).In 1951 I met Goldschmidt at a symposium in Cold Spring Harbor,but I only knew that he was a prominent geneticist.I had no idea about his insect cell culture work at Yale University and daily contacts with Ross G.Harrison.In 1959 Zan Yin Gaw in Wuhan successfully cultured monolayers of silkworm cells for more than one year.I reported his breakthrough achievement at the 11th International Congress of Entomology in Vienna in 1960,but his work was completely ignored outside China.In 1982 Gaw invited me to Wuhan where he told me that he studied in the United States in the 1930s,working as postdoctoral scientist at the Rockefeller Institute,where he was daily meeting William Trager,and later at Yale University in the Osborn Laboratory,where he was inspired by Harrison.T.D.C.Grace worked in my laboratory at Rockefeller University during 1957 and 1958,then returned to CSIRO in Canberra,Australia.     

Academician of Academia Sinica:Biographical Sketch of Prof.C.L.Tsou(Chenglu Zou)

C.L.Tsou( Chenglu Zou) was born on May 1 7,1 92 3in Jiangsu,China.He received his B.Sc.in1 945from the chemistry department of The National Southwest Associated University in Kunming andwas awarded a Ph.D.( Biochemistry) from the University of Cambridge,England in 1 951 .He was aResearch Associate then Professor and Head of Enzyme Division of the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry,Academia Sinica.He moved to Beijing in1 970 to the Institute of Biophysics and was its Deputy Direc…     

Base-excision repair and beyond—A short summary attributed to scientific achievements of Tomas Lindahl,Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry 2015

正Tomas Lindahl contributed his scientific career to unveiling fundamental mechanisms of DNA decay and repair.He made several ground-breaking discoveries on genome instability,novel DNA repair activities and pathways,and disease association.The 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Tomas Lindahl,Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar for their mechanistic studies of DNA repair.Their findings were     

Analyzing the H19- and T65-epitopes in 38 kd phosphory-lated protein of Marek’s disease viruses and comparing chicken immunological reactions to viruses point-mutated in the epitopes

DNA sequencing analysis in 38 kd phosphorylated protein (pp38) ORF of Marek's disease viruses (MDV) indicated that all tested 10 virulent strains with different pathotypes had 'A' at base #320 and glutamine at aa#107 while reacted with monoclonal antibody (Mab) H19 in indirect fluorescence antibody test (IFA). However, vaccine strain CVI988 had 'G' at base#320 and arginine at aa#107 instead, when it was negative in IFA with Mab H19. Some strains were also reactive with Mab T65 in IFA while there was 'G' at base #326 and glycine at aa#109, but the other strains, which had 'A' at base #326 and glutamic acid at aa#109, did not react with Mab T65. By comparison of CVI988 to its point mutants CVI/rpp38(AG) and CVI/rpp38(AA) with 1 or 2 base(s) changes at bases #320 and /or #326 of pp38 gene for their reactivity with Mab H19 and T65, it was confirmed that the glutamine at aa#107 and glycine at aa#109 were critical to epi-topes H19 and T65 respectively. Immuno-reactions to MDV were compared in SPF chickens ino     

闽南地区TT病毒的变异及经输血传播的初步证据

TT virus(TTV)DNA was tested by nested-PCR from sera of hepatitis patients and volunteer blood donors in Minnan area. The amplified segment was a 189 base pair region in TTV ORF2. A total of six sequences were obtained from three non-A to G hepatits patients and two from volunteer blood donors. The sequences were found to be with 82.9% to 99.3% homology to TTV Japanese strain and Chinese strain. The divergence of sequence in these six segments varied from 0.7% to 17.1%, which indicated that the TTV had been existing for a long time in this area. In the serum of a non-A to G hepatitis patient who was negative for TTV DNA in the 14th day of disease course turned to be positive in the 30th day, two TTV sequences were obtained which showed 92.1% nucleotide homology. It indicated that different TTV strains can co exist in the same person. This patient's blood had been transfused ten times between the collection of his TTV negative sample and his positive serum sample. Seven of the blood donors were traced and sampled for sera, of which three were positive for TTV. For all 161 patients tested, the history of exposure to blood products was associated with an increased risk of TTV infection(relative risk, 3.0; 95% confidence intervals, 1.89～4.81).     

Celebrating the work of Nobel Laureate Paul Modrich

正On October 7,2015,the Nobel Prize Committee announced that the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry had been awarded jointly to Professors Paul Modrich,Tomas Lindahl and Aziz Sancar(Figure 1),each of whom made ground-breaking discoveries about the molecular mechanisms of DNA Repair.In one of life’s unpredictable turns,Paul was among the last individuals in his entire personal,professional and     

DNA isolation by a rapid method from human blood samples: Effects of MgCl2, EDTA,storage time,and temperature on DNA yield and quality

The isolation of DNA from whole blood by a modified rapid method (RM) was tested using various detergents and buffer conditions. Extraction of DNA with either NP-40 or Triton X-100 gave a high yield of undegraded DNA in less than an hour. The concentration of magnesium ion in the buffers was critical to obtaining intact, high molecular weight (HMW) DNA. Greater than 10 mM MgCl₂ led to degradation. Addition of EDTA to the buffer inhibits this degradation. Preparation of DNA from blood stored at room temperature or incubated at 37°C for 24 hr resulted in the same amount and quality of DNA as from samples frozen at −70°C. DNA from blood samples that had undergone more than four freeze-thaw cycles was found to be partially degraded. The modified RM can be applied to extract DNA from as little as 10 μl of blood (340 ng of DNA) and from dried blood samples. DNA samples remained intact and undegraded for longer times when DNA was dissolved in higher concentrations of EDTA. This work was supported by grants from the Indiana Department of Mental Health and PHS RO1 AG10297.     

Inhibition of shoot induction by 5-azacytidine and 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine in Petunia involves DNA hypomethylation

Shoot bud regeneration from Petunia leaf disks was inhibited when they were cultured with the demethylating agents, 5-azacytidine (AzaC) and 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine (AzadC), in shoot induction (SI) medium. Explants induced shoot primordia if they were transferred after 1 week from the medium containing the drugs to medium without drugs. The fresh weight of leaf disks cultured on SI medium for 2 weeks in the presence of the drugs was 60–80% lower when compared to control shoot-forming cultures. Internode length was reduced when shoots were transferred to phytohormone-free Murashige and Skoog medium containing the drugs. However, no other morphological abnormalities were seen in these shoots, even at 20 μm AzaC or 5 μm AzadC. Coupled restriction enzyme digestion (with HpaII and MspI) and random amplification of genomic DNA was performed to detect the level of methylation of CCGG sites in the DNA of the explants exposed to AzaC and AzadC. Over 15 amplified bands were detectable in the control. Five of these bands were absent in the amplified products when digested DNA from the drug-treated explants was used as the template, showing that hypomethylation of DNA had occurred. This suggests that inhibition of shoot bud formation in the presence of the drugs AzaC and AzadC may be due to the altered methylation status. Received: 7 January 1997 / Revision received: 17 February 1997 / Accepted: 1 March 1997