William X. Wang
Encyclopedia
William X. Wang (born: June 6, 1958) is a Chinese American scientist
and entrepreneur
.
, a metropolitan lying at the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han River (Hanshui)
in Central China
. During his childhood he lived in Hanchuan, a small town by the north bank of the Han River and 60 kilometers away from downtown Wuhan.
Wang was 15 years old when he wrote and submitted his first scientific paper to the Chinese Academy of Science Institute of Brain Research. The paper endeavored to explore the biological nature and physical composition of human intelligence
. To apply his idea of Darwinian evolutionary theory, he gathered first-hand data from hundreds of children and adults by interviewing them and measuring profiles of their forehead
s. Zhang Xiangtong (张香桐), the director of the institute as well as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Science responded Wang a hand-written letter with high praise and encouragement, and the letter became Wang’s treasure of lifetime and an invaluable inspiration that led him to the future career of science.
In China during the ten years of the Great Cultural Revolution
, between 1966 and 1976, most of the universities and colleges were shut down, and higher education
was abolished. In 1977 when Deng Xiaoping
(邓小平) overturned the old policies, the paralyzed high education system was restarted and millions of young people were encouraged to prepare for the National Higher Education Entrance Examination. At this time, Wang was 19. Two weeks before the national examination, he was still working in the remote countryside as a farmer because at that time all high school graduates had to work at farms for at least two years before they were allowed to return to their home town.
, which was one of the top five universities at that time in China.
Wang had not much opportunity to study mathematics
, physics
and chemistry
in the ten years prior to the national examination since such subjects at elemental, junior or high school either were not taught or inadequate as result of countless political movements. Wang was obliged to choose social sciences as his subject for the national entrance examination. So history became his first major. Ancient Greece
& Ancient Rome
, taught by Wu Yujin (吴于廑), and Romance of Three Kingdoms, taught by Tang Changru (唐长孺), were a few of the classes that he had greatly enjoyed during his freshman and sophomore years.
Besides evolutionary theory and human intelligence, some of interdisciplinary junctions between genealogy
, human genetics
, psychology
, sociology
and geopolitics
, also captivated Wang and became his focus during first his first two college years. He studied family trees using his own family as the subject and traced the family history even back to one thousand years. The ancestor on Wang’s father side was descended from Nurhaci
(努尔哈赤), the first emperor
of Qing Dynasty
(清朝); and originated from one of eight Qing’s royal tribals called “Xianghuang Banner” (镶黄旗) , a nationality called Qing (清) that used to be nomads in Northern China before having crossed over the Great Wall and conquested the much more advanced Han nationality in 1644. In the late Southern Song dynasty (南宋) the ancestor on Wang’s mother side (surnamed Lin
(林姓), a clan of Han nationality that lived in Southern China), joined the troop led by Wen Tianxiang (文天祥), Lu Xiufu (陆秀夫) and Zhang Shijie (张世杰) at the Yaishan Battle (崖山之役) fought against Mongols
led by Kublai Khan
(忽必烈) in 1279. In the first half of 20th century, three elders, Lin Yun-Gai (林云陔), Lin Bai-Sheng (林柏生), and Lin Li-Ru (林励儒), who were all from Wang’s mother side (Lin), but with distinct political views from each other, respectively served as minister-level officer in the Chiang Kaishek (蒋介石) administration, in the Wang Chingwei (汪精卫) regime, and in the Mao Zedong
(毛泽东) government. In his second scientific paper, Wang presented himself as a chimera resulting from the cultural integration and genetic merge between two unique nationalities, one of which has been dominating Northern China as nomads for centuries, and the other of which has been living in Southern China as a highly civilized group for over one thousand years. Later Wang presented his theory as an article titled Genetic shift, gene fusion and hybrid advantage resulted from the immigration and re-settlement of grouped clans coming from distinctive geographic territories induced by historical events or wars. Shi Quan (石泉), a leading historical geographer, and Yu Xianjue (余先觉), a well-known human geneticist
, both taught at the university then, reviewed the paper with great interest and pointed out its weakness from their different perspectives.
After two years of study at the university, Wang reached a pinnacle of his college career by delivering his third scientific paper, which described how the language that is composed and delivered by a brain, acts in turn to stimulate, promote, optimize and advance the brain, when this “interaction” is viewed from the perspective of the evolution of human intelligence. Antecedents to the thoughts reflected in the third paper can be found in the second paper and even in his first paper seven years before. The paper was reviewed by Wu Xizai (吴熙载), a distinguished professor in the field. Wu made a strong recommendation to the president of the university, Liu Daoyu (刘道玉), and asked the president as a favor, to allow Wang to change his major. Twenty days after Wang submitted his paper, which was on January 11, 1980, Wang became the first student in the nation and in the history of the modern Chinese higher education, to be allowed by Chinese Ministry of Education to switch from a major in social sciences
– history
, to be a major in natural sciences - biology
. Wang's paper was a significant incident in the history of Chinese education and also changed his goals in life.
In earlier 1980s, scholars from leading universities and research institutions in China were fascinated with phenomenon called “special human body functions” (人体特异功能), a number of adults and children had claimed they have capabilities of “reading” a certain Chinese characters that were written in a folded paper through ears or hands. Brain has been Wang’s favour subject and Freud has also been inspiring him for years. Exploring this phonomenon, became a new extension of his imgination. He organized a team that including freshman, graduate students and even junior faculty members, and devoted a large portion of his effort on the project. Wang tried design experimental systems that would ascertain how acquisition of information by means external to the basic limiting assumptions of science could have been possible. Wang realized that it was extremely difficult to replicate such extraordinary experiences under controlled scientific conditions. Several Chinese leading scholars, Tsien Hsue-shen
(钱学森), specialized on cybernetics
, Wei Nengrun (魏能润), specialized on otolaryngology
, and Yu Guangyuan (于光远), specialized on humanities
, had become strong supporters on those investigations, and because that, a national debate even had been triggered then. Wang in 1981 actually founded first group on somatic science in China – Wuhan University Society of Special Human Body Functions, which used to have over 200 members during 1980-1982.
In 1983, during his fourth college year as a student of biology, Wang drafted his fourth scientific paper, which was intended to explore a four possible origin for cancer
, which Wang categorized as: 1) environmentally “at the cellular level” where cancer could be induced by exogenous factors such as a contaminating entity, diary composition, life behavior and so on; 2) biologically “at the molecule level” due to variances of DNA structure
, RNA structure
, and protein structure
; 3) chemically “at the atomic level” resulted from chemical bond
s, residues positions and configurations; and 4) intrinsically “at the subatomic level”. The paper is titled as self-unwinding of DNA caused by nitrogen
proton
’s perturbation: a possible relationship of the activation of proto-oncogenes and the intrinsic instability of DNA duplex, and three years late in 1986 Wang was invited to give a talk at the 14th International Cancer Congress in Budapest
based on the original idea. Wang presented his theory at the conference: cancers can be induced not only environmentally, biologically, chemically, but intrinsically at cellular, molecular, atomic level and even at the subatomic level. He believed that modern science and technologies, would never be able to fully control, completely stop or fundamentally eliminate the origin and development of cancers, because of the fourth cause, and the nature of the fourth cause.
s of Chinese Academy of Science including Tang Aoqing (唐敖庆), Liang Xiaotian (梁晓天), Liang Zhiquan (梁植权), Zou Chenglu (邹承鲁), Gao Shangyin (高尚荫), etc., have either liked, supported or challenged Wang’s determination and predication. The Chinese Central Television has even made a special program called “Talents in Challenge” of the story and broadcast it three times nationwide. It had also bought him great opportunities: Chinese Academy of Sciences awarded him a research grant for encouraging the further research; a leading scholar from Cambridge University offered him a Ph.D. scholarship; and several US universities generously offered him pre- or postdoctoral fellowships. William made a wise choice: go to the United States. On December 24, 1987, just one day before Christmas
, Wang was granted an F-1 visa from the US embassy at Beijing, and flew over the Pacific on January 11, 1988.
at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. One unique feature of our immune system
is the level of specificity in antigen recognitionhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov//pubmed/9469799: a specific antigen
binds to the T-cell receptorhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov//pubmed/9586631, the receptor recognizes it, and triggers an immune response. Dr. Ned S. Braustein directed his work on identifying and mapping the sequences in both class II major histocompatibility complex
α- and β-chains that contribute to the binding of the superantigen toxic shock syndrome
toxic I. Wang performed good work on those innovative and intriguing research subjects and also demonstrated the potential and capability for being a leading scientist in future. On January 11, 1992, four year after he arrived the country, Wang was granted for US Permanent Residency
(towards to US citizenship five years late) by US Department of State, as the 1st priority called “exceptional foreign talent” initially recommended recommended by Dr. Isidore S. Edelman, a member of US National Academy of Science taught at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. A few weeks before leaving Columbia University, Wang received two offers of postdoctoral fellowships from two leading institutions after presentations were being made: Harvard University
Department of Biochemistry and NIH National Institute of Mental Health
. Facing a difficult choice, Wang recalled a moment that were many years ago, when he was 15, he was so fascinated by the mystery of the compactness and complexity of human brain
, and committed himself into that sort of pioneering and exciting work—exploring the neural network puzzle of human brain. So, he chose NIH for his next step.
In January 1992, Wang started his postdoctoral studies on Alzheimer’s disease at the National Institute of Mental Health
, National Institutes of Health
. With the guidance from Dr. David M. Jacobowitz he investigated the catalytic pattern of chymotrypsin
in CNS
and SERM
compounds’ molecular and cellular mechanism in both the normal brain
and the brain affected by neurodegenerative disease. Based on those genomic and proteomic approaches, as the first person in the world, Wang has proven the presence of chymotrypsin
-like protease
in peripheral organs. Although no definitive evidence for the synthesis of this enzyme
in tissue other than the pancreas
is available, identified potential activities of chymotrypsin
-like protease
in the human cerebral cortex
where has potential Alzheimer’s disease.
From 1994 to 1995, during the period of working at ICRF unit of clinical oncology at University of Oxford
Institute of Molecular Medicine, which led by Sir Walter Bodmer
and Dr. Adrian L. Harris, William has performed a variety of experiments: establishing yeast based two-hybrid system and transgenic animal model; localizing, cloning
and characterizing receptor tyrosine kinase
gene; constructing chimerical receptors; generating stable-transfectants; and mapping signal transduction pathways based on proteomic profiling. The work has led the isolation and characterization of an ovarian-cancer associated receptor protein kinase and its ligand
, and thus Wang has became a member of the first team of scientists who identified novel receptor tyrosine kinase
genes in human ovarian cancer
cells.
In his research at Cleveland Clinic
as an assistant professor in 1996, Wang has established a transgenic mouse model and successfully demonstrated interferon
’s potential for therapeutic intervention against cancer.
In 1997, Wang went to Japan
and spent a few months of working at Roche’s laboratory located in Tsukuba as a principal investigator
. There he has put his effort to identify a novel ligand to the kinase receptor by using integrated High-throughput screening
systems that support mapping of docking (molecular) hits and screening of lead compounds. As principal software engineer
and data architect
working at Oracle Corporation
in 1998-1999, Wang has instrumentally engaged himself on design of the Oracle Clinic Database – one of the most powerful data management systems in medicine, based on relational and object-oriented technologies; and development of an administrative console of healthcare system that extends UI to Oracle database with integrated technologies of XML
, HTML
, PL/SQL
, JavaBeans
, JSP
and Java. As program director working at Eli Lilly & Company in 2000-2001, Wang led a multidisciplinary research team consisting of pharmaceutical scientists, bioinformatics
scientists, software engineers, and validation specialists, in development of the data mining
system that sorts, edits, visualizes and reports data generated from target-identification, preclinical research and clinical trials phases, and the pharmacogenomic data system that supports annotation
required for analyzing inter-individual variation and determining genetic polymorphism by implementing statistical algorithms. As vice president of bioinformatics
working at Integrated DNA Technologies Inc. in 2002, Wang led a team working on developing genomic match engine which can perform similarity searches, uniqueness determination, motif indication, contig assembly, multi-sequence alignment, and automatic sequence loading.
-based Microsystems
http://www.nsti.org/BioNano2008/showabstract.html?absno=1029http://biophysics.physics.brown.edu/bpjc/JC%20pdf%20paper%20files/Spring%202005/Magnetoresistive-based%20biosensors%20and%20biochips.pdf
At Wang’s perspective, grouped sensing systems can be simulated to have the most important features and functions of human neural system. It is embodied from following four aspects: i) in the way that the distinct sensing terminals synapses are designed to response to stimuli such as sound, light, electronic, temperature, odor, taste or others respectively and deliver the signals to the centre control point (brain) of the sensing system; ii) in the components that built in the sensing system have their mirror entities in an neuron
such as receptive zone, trigger zone, conducting zone, and output zone; iii) in the network that implemented in the sensing system to perform crosstalk among multiple sensing pathways just like what happened in the complex of neural fibers; iv) in the two-way signaling delivery that utilized by the sensing system to transfer input signals from downstream ("dendrite
" and "axon
" of the sensing system) to upstream ("cortex
" of the sensing system) and then deliver output message from the upstream to the downstream based on implementing microarrays at terminals of the sensing system and grouping signaling transfer channels as “cord of neural fibers”.
Since Pharmacom was established in 2002, Wang’s attention has been focusing on developing smaller-sized screening, detecting and interpreting systems with faster response, lower cost and higher sensitivity. A series of instruments are designed to be able to perform real-time detection on biomarkers of infectious diseases (e.g. West Niles virus, Mad Cow Disease, AIDS
, SARS); signature molecules of pathogens (e.g. Escherichia coli O157:H7
); contaminates of air and water; and epidemic
factors of allergies(e.g. Flu, Asthma
). They undertake all steps in a streamlined analysis from raw sample collection, optional sample separation, captured target identification, specific confirmation triggering and remote reporting.
Wang currently serves as Chairman, President and CEO of Pharmacom Corporation, an Iowa City-headquartered biotech company, consisted of fifteen subordinate companies operated at United States
, Japan
, China
, Czech Republic
, Italy
and Finland
respectively. The business mainly involves developing portable/implantable biochip
-based microsystems
for monitory, detection, diagnosis and therapy, and producing organic products that naturally extracted from animal organ or plant portion for skincare, energy-enhance, impotency-improvement, cancer
-prevention, and diabetes-cure.
Wang is currently a lecture professor of Qingdao Agricultural University Pharmacom College of Biomedical Engineering. During 2010, Wang served as an adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at The University of Iowa College of Engineering.
Wang intends to create a super chain called “education-research-manufacture”. The chain is consisted of three master pierces: “education” on life science and biomedical engineering; “research” on microsystem-related subjects including genomics, proteomics, microarray, microfluidics and microfabrication, and “manufacture” of chip-driven microsystems for monitory, detection, diagnosis and therapy.
, protein chemistry and neuroscience
, and holds eighteen U.S. patents or provisional patents for genomics
software and biosensing devices.
. The Clark House was built by the first governor of the State of Iowa, Robert Lucas (governor)
’s family during the middle of the 19th century. Over the last 150 years, only five families had lived in this four-storage house prior to the Wang family’s residency. The second resident was Mr. Adesida Clark, a grandson of Abraham Clark
, a co-signer of the Declaration of Independence. The third resident was a world-famous mathematician in early 20th century, Richard P. Baker who educated at Oxford and the University of London, did advanced work on surface models at the University of Chicago and then taught at the University of Iowa during 1905-1937. The fourth resident was Raymond G. Bunge. During middle 1950s he has developed the glycerol medium for preserving sperm, thus developing the first sperm bank
in the world, paving the way for human artificial insemination
, and the clinical area of infertility treatment was born due to his pioneering work.
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
and entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
.
Early life
Wang was born in WuhanWuhan
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, People's Republic of China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies at the east of the Jianghan Plain, and the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers...
, a metropolitan lying at the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han River (Hanshui)
Han River (Hanshui)
The Han River is a left tributary of the Yangtze River with a length of 1532 km. Historically it was referred to as Hànshuǐ and the name is still occasionally used today....
in Central China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. During his childhood he lived in Hanchuan, a small town by the north bank of the Han River and 60 kilometers away from downtown Wuhan.
Wang was 15 years old when he wrote and submitted his first scientific paper to the Chinese Academy of Science Institute of Brain Research. The paper endeavored to explore the biological nature and physical composition of human intelligence
Intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving....
. To apply his idea of Darwinian evolutionary theory, he gathered first-hand data from hundreds of children and adults by interviewing them and measuring profiles of their forehead
Forehead
For the Arsenal striker see GervinhoIn human anatomy, the forehead is the fore part of the head. It is, formally, an area of the head bounded by three features, two of the skull and one of the scalp. The top of the forehead is marked by the hairline, the edge of the area where hair on the scalp...
s. Zhang Xiangtong (张香桐), the director of the institute as well as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Science responded Wang a hand-written letter with high praise and encouragement, and the letter became Wang’s treasure of lifetime and an invaluable inspiration that led him to the future career of science.
In China during the ten years of the Great Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
, between 1966 and 1976, most of the universities and colleges were shut down, and higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
was abolished. In 1977 when Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...
(邓小平) overturned the old policies, the paralyzed high education system was restarted and millions of young people were encouraged to prepare for the National Higher Education Entrance Examination. At this time, Wang was 19. Two weeks before the national examination, he was still working in the remote countryside as a farmer because at that time all high school graduates had to work at farms for at least two years before they were allowed to return to their home town.
University
In December 1977, over six million applicants from all over the country participated in the national examination, which had been overdue for more than ten years. Two months later, one twentieth of them were accepted by a handful of universities, and Wang was one of those lucky ones. He was selected by Wuhan UniversityWuhan University
Wuhan University is a university located in Wuchang, Hubei, China. It is directly under the administration of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. It is regarded as one of the top ten universities in China, and its history dates back to 1893, making it one of China's...
, which was one of the top five universities at that time in China.
Wang had not much opportunity to study mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
in the ten years prior to the national examination since such subjects at elemental, junior or high school either were not taught or inadequate as result of countless political movements. Wang was obliged to choose social sciences as his subject for the national entrance examination. So history became his first major. Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
& Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
, taught by Wu Yujin (吴于廑), and Romance of Three Kingdoms, taught by Tang Changru (唐长孺), were a few of the classes that he had greatly enjoyed during his freshman and sophomore years.
Besides evolutionary theory and human intelligence, some of interdisciplinary junctions between genealogy
Genealogy
Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
, human genetics
Human genetics
Human genetics describes the study of inheritance as it occurs in human beings. Human genetics encompasses a variety of overlapping fields including: classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, biochemical genetics, genomics, population genetics, developmental genetics, clinical genetics,...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
and geopolitics
Geopolitics
Geopolitics, from Greek Γη and Πολιτική in broad terms, is a theory that describes the relation between politics and territory whether on local or international scale....
, also captivated Wang and became his focus during first his first two college years. He studied family trees using his own family as the subject and traced the family history even back to one thousand years. The ancestor on Wang’s father side was descended from Nurhaci
Nurhaci
Nurhaci was an important Jurchen chieftain who rose to prominence in the late sixteenth century in what is today Northeastern China...
(努尔哈赤), the first emperor
Emperor
An emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife or a woman who rules in her own right...
of Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
(清朝); and originated from one of eight Qing’s royal tribals called “Xianghuang Banner” (镶黄旗) , a nationality called Qing (清) that used to be nomads in Northern China before having crossed over the Great Wall and conquested the much more advanced Han nationality in 1644. In the late Southern Song dynasty (南宋) the ancestor on Wang’s mother side (surnamed Lin
Lin (surname)
Lín Lin is the second most common surname in Taiwan at 9% of the population, second only to Chen. In mainland China , Lin is generally less common.-Name origin:...
(林姓), a clan of Han nationality that lived in Southern China), joined the troop led by Wen Tianxiang (文天祥), Lu Xiufu (陆秀夫) and Zhang Shijie (张世杰) at the Yaishan Battle (崖山之役) fought against Mongols
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
led by Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan , born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu , was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China...
(忽必烈) in 1279. In the first half of 20th century, three elders, Lin Yun-Gai (林云陔), Lin Bai-Sheng (林柏生), and Lin Li-Ru (林励儒), who were all from Wang’s mother side (Lin), but with distinct political views from each other, respectively served as minister-level officer in the Chiang Kaishek (蒋介石) administration, in the Wang Chingwei (汪精卫) regime, and in the Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
(毛泽东) government. In his second scientific paper, Wang presented himself as a chimera resulting from the cultural integration and genetic merge between two unique nationalities, one of which has been dominating Northern China as nomads for centuries, and the other of which has been living in Southern China as a highly civilized group for over one thousand years. Later Wang presented his theory as an article titled Genetic shift, gene fusion and hybrid advantage resulted from the immigration and re-settlement of grouped clans coming from distinctive geographic territories induced by historical events or wars. Shi Quan (石泉), a leading historical geographer, and Yu Xianjue (余先觉), a well-known human geneticist
Geneticist
A geneticist is a biologist who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a researcher or lecturer. Some geneticists perform experiments and analyze data to interpret the inheritance of skills. A geneticist is also a Consultant or...
, both taught at the university then, reviewed the paper with great interest and pointed out its weakness from their different perspectives.
After two years of study at the university, Wang reached a pinnacle of his college career by delivering his third scientific paper, which described how the language that is composed and delivered by a brain, acts in turn to stimulate, promote, optimize and advance the brain, when this “interaction” is viewed from the perspective of the evolution of human intelligence. Antecedents to the thoughts reflected in the third paper can be found in the second paper and even in his first paper seven years before. The paper was reviewed by Wu Xizai (吴熙载), a distinguished professor in the field. Wu made a strong recommendation to the president of the university, Liu Daoyu (刘道玉), and asked the president as a favor, to allow Wang to change his major. Twenty days after Wang submitted his paper, which was on January 11, 1980, Wang became the first student in the nation and in the history of the modern Chinese higher education, to be allowed by Chinese Ministry of Education to switch from a major in social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
– history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, to be a major in natural sciences - biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
. Wang's paper was a significant incident in the history of Chinese education and also changed his goals in life.
In earlier 1980s, scholars from leading universities and research institutions in China were fascinated with phenomenon called “special human body functions” (人体特异功能), a number of adults and children had claimed they have capabilities of “reading” a certain Chinese characters that were written in a folded paper through ears or hands. Brain has been Wang’s favour subject and Freud has also been inspiring him for years. Exploring this phonomenon, became a new extension of his imgination. He organized a team that including freshman, graduate students and even junior faculty members, and devoted a large portion of his effort on the project. Wang tried design experimental systems that would ascertain how acquisition of information by means external to the basic limiting assumptions of science could have been possible. Wang realized that it was extremely difficult to replicate such extraordinary experiences under controlled scientific conditions. Several Chinese leading scholars, Tsien Hsue-shen
Tsien Hsue-shen
Qian Xuesen was a scientist who made important contributions to the missile and space programs of both the United States and People's Republic of China. Historical documents in the U. S. commonly refer to him with the earlier family-name last spelling, Hsue-Shen Tsien or H.S...
(钱学森), specialized on cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
, Wei Nengrun (魏能润), specialized on otolaryngology
Otolaryngology
Otolaryngology or ENT is the branch of medicine and surgery that specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of ear, nose, throat, and head and neck disorders....
, and Yu Guangyuan (于光远), specialized on humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
, had become strong supporters on those investigations, and because that, a national debate even had been triggered then. Wang in 1981 actually founded first group on somatic science in China – Wuhan University Society of Special Human Body Functions, which used to have over 200 members during 1980-1982.
In 1983, during his fourth college year as a student of biology, Wang drafted his fourth scientific paper, which was intended to explore a four possible origin for cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, which Wang categorized as: 1) environmentally “at the cellular level” where cancer could be induced by exogenous factors such as a contaminating entity, diary composition, life behavior and so on; 2) biologically “at the molecule level” due to variances of DNA structure
DNA structure
In molecular biology, the term double helix refers to the structure formed by double-stranded molecules of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. The double helical structure of a nucleic acid complex arises as a consequence of its secondary structure, and is a fundamental component in determining its...
, RNA structure
RNA structure
Biomolecular structure is the structure of biomolecules, mainly proteins and the nucleic acids DNA and RNA. The structure of these molecules is frequently decomposed into primary structure, secondary structure, tertiary structure, and quaternary structure. The scaffold for this structure is...
, and protein structure
Protein structure
Proteins are an important class of biological macromolecules present in all organisms. Proteins are polymers of amino acids. Classified by their physical size, proteins are nanoparticles . Each protein polymer – also known as a polypeptide – consists of a sequence formed from 20 possible L-α-amino...
; 3) chemically “at the atomic level” resulted from chemical bond
Chemical bond
A chemical bond is an attraction between atoms that allows the formation of chemical substances that contain two or more atoms. The bond is caused by the electromagnetic force attraction between opposite charges, either between electrons and nuclei, or as the result of a dipole attraction...
s, residues positions and configurations; and 4) intrinsically “at the subatomic level”. The paper is titled as self-unwinding of DNA caused by nitrogen
Nitrogen
Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...
proton
Proton
The proton is a subatomic particle with the symbol or and a positive electric charge of 1 elementary charge. One or more protons are present in the nucleus of each atom, along with neutrons. The number of protons in each atom is its atomic number....
’s perturbation: a possible relationship of the activation of proto-oncogenes and the intrinsic instability of DNA duplex, and three years late in 1986 Wang was invited to give a talk at the 14th International Cancer Congress in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
based on the original idea. Wang presented his theory at the conference: cancers can be induced not only environmentally, biologically, chemically, but intrinsically at cellular, molecular, atomic level and even at the subatomic level. He believed that modern science and technologies, would never be able to fully control, completely stop or fundamentally eliminate the origin and development of cancers, because of the fourth cause, and the nature of the fourth cause.
To the United States
Creative thought and pioneering work on the intrinsic instability of DNA duplex has created controversy among scientists in the related field. Over ten academicianAcademician
The title Academician denotes a Full Member of an art, literary, or scientific academy.In many countries, it is an honorary title. There also exists a lower-rank title, variously translated Corresponding Member or Associate Member, .-Eastern Europe and China:"Academician" may also be a functional...
s of Chinese Academy of Science including Tang Aoqing (唐敖庆), Liang Xiaotian (梁晓天), Liang Zhiquan (梁植权), Zou Chenglu (邹承鲁), Gao Shangyin (高尚荫), etc., have either liked, supported or challenged Wang’s determination and predication. The Chinese Central Television has even made a special program called “Talents in Challenge” of the story and broadcast it three times nationwide. It had also bought him great opportunities: Chinese Academy of Sciences awarded him a research grant for encouraging the further research; a leading scholar from Cambridge University offered him a Ph.D. scholarship; and several US universities generously offered him pre- or postdoctoral fellowships. William made a wise choice: go to the United States. On December 24, 1987, just one day before Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
, Wang was granted an F-1 visa from the US embassy at Beijing, and flew over the Pacific on January 11, 1988.
Phase of learning
Uptown Manhattan Campus of Columbia University is the place where Wang has spent his first four years in the United States. From 1988 to 1992, Wang undertook Ph.D. studies in immunologyImmunology
Immunology is a broad branch of biomedical science that covers the study of all aspects of the immune system in all organisms. It deals with the physiological functioning of the immune system in states of both health and diseases; malfunctions of the immune system in immunological disorders ; the...
at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. One unique feature of our immune system
Immune system
An immune system is a system of biological structures and processes within an organism that protects against disease by identifying and killing pathogens and tumor cells. It detects a wide variety of agents, from viruses to parasitic worms, and needs to distinguish them from the organism's own...
is the level of specificity in antigen recognitionhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov//pubmed/9469799: a specific antigen
Antigen
An antigen is a foreign molecule that, when introduced into the body, triggers the production of an antibody by the immune system. The immune system will then kill or neutralize the antigen that is recognized as a foreign and potentially harmful invader. These invaders can be molecules such as...
binds to the T-cell receptorhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov//pubmed/9586631, the receptor recognizes it, and triggers an immune response. Dr. Ned S. Braustein directed his work on identifying and mapping the sequences in both class II major histocompatibility complex
Major histocompatibility complex
Major histocompatibility complex is a cell surface molecule encoded by a large gene family in all vertebrates. MHC molecules mediate interactions of leukocytes, also called white blood cells , which are immune cells, with other leukocytes or body cells...
α- and β-chains that contribute to the binding of the superantigen toxic shock syndrome
Toxic shock syndrome
Toxic shock syndrome is a potentially fatal illness caused by a bacterial toxin. Different bacterial toxins may cause toxic shock syndrome, depending on the situation. The causative bacteria include Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes...
toxic I. Wang performed good work on those innovative and intriguing research subjects and also demonstrated the potential and capability for being a leading scientist in future. On January 11, 1992, four year after he arrived the country, Wang was granted for US Permanent Residency
Permanent residency
Permanent residency refers to a person's visa status: the person is allowed to reside indefinitely within a country of which he or she is not a citizen. A person with such status is known as a permanent resident....
(towards to US citizenship five years late) by US Department of State, as the 1st priority called “exceptional foreign talent” initially recommended recommended by Dr. Isidore S. Edelman, a member of US National Academy of Science taught at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. A few weeks before leaving Columbia University, Wang received two offers of postdoctoral fellowships from two leading institutions after presentations were being made: Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
Department of Biochemistry and NIH National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health...
. Facing a difficult choice, Wang recalled a moment that were many years ago, when he was 15, he was so fascinated by the mystery of the compactness and complexity of human brain
Human brain
The human brain has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times larger than the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size. Estimates for the number of neurons in the human brain range from 80 to 120 billion...
, and committed himself into that sort of pioneering and exciting work—exploring the neural network puzzle of human brain. So, he chose NIH for his next step.
In January 1992, Wang started his postdoctoral studies on Alzheimer’s disease at the National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health...
, National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
. With the guidance from Dr. David M. Jacobowitz he investigated the catalytic pattern of chymotrypsin
Chymotrypsin
Chymotrypsin is a digestive enzyme that can perform proteolysis. Chymotrypsin preferentially cleaves peptide amide bonds where the carboxyl side of the amide bond is a tyrosine, tryptophan, or phenylalanine. These amino acids contain an aromatic ring in their sidechain that fits into a...
in CNS
Central nervous system
The central nervous system is the part of the nervous system that integrates the information that it receives from, and coordinates the activity of, all parts of the bodies of bilaterian animals—that is, all multicellular animals except sponges and radially symmetric animals such as jellyfish...
and SERM
Selective estrogen receptor modulator
Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators are a class of compounds that act on the estrogen receptor. A characteristic that distinguishes these substances from pure receptor agonists and antagonists is that their action is different in various tissues, thereby granting the possibility to selectively...
compounds’ molecular and cellular mechanism in both the normal brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
and the brain affected by neurodegenerative disease. Based on those genomic and proteomic approaches, as the first person in the world, Wang has proven the presence of chymotrypsin
Chymotrypsin
Chymotrypsin is a digestive enzyme that can perform proteolysis. Chymotrypsin preferentially cleaves peptide amide bonds where the carboxyl side of the amide bond is a tyrosine, tryptophan, or phenylalanine. These amino acids contain an aromatic ring in their sidechain that fits into a...
-like protease
Protease
A protease is any enzyme that conducts proteolysis, that is, begins protein catabolism by hydrolysis of the peptide bonds that link amino acids together in the polypeptide chain forming the protein....
in peripheral organs. Although no definitive evidence for the synthesis of this enzyme
Enzyme
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...
in tissue other than the pancreas
Pancreas
The pancreas is a gland organ in the digestive and endocrine system of vertebrates. It is both an endocrine gland producing several important hormones, including insulin, glucagon, and somatostatin, as well as a digestive organ, secreting pancreatic juice containing digestive enzymes that assist...
is available, identified potential activities of chymotrypsin
Chymotrypsin
Chymotrypsin is a digestive enzyme that can perform proteolysis. Chymotrypsin preferentially cleaves peptide amide bonds where the carboxyl side of the amide bond is a tyrosine, tryptophan, or phenylalanine. These amino acids contain an aromatic ring in their sidechain that fits into a...
-like protease
Protease
A protease is any enzyme that conducts proteolysis, that is, begins protein catabolism by hydrolysis of the peptide bonds that link amino acids together in the polypeptide chain forming the protein....
in the human cerebral cortex
Cerebral cortex
The cerebral cortex is a sheet of neural tissue that is outermost to the cerebrum of the mammalian brain. It plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It is constituted of up to six horizontal layers, each of which has a different...
where has potential Alzheimer’s disease.
From 1994 to 1995, during the period of working at ICRF unit of clinical oncology at University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
Institute of Molecular Medicine, which led by Sir Walter Bodmer
Walter Bodmer
Sir Walter Bodmer is a German-born British human geneticist. His father being Jewish, the family left Germany in 1938 and settled in Manchester. Bodmer has developed models for population genetics and done work on the human leukocyte antigen system and the use of somatic cell hybrids for human...
and Dr. Adrian L. Harris, William has performed a variety of experiments: establishing yeast based two-hybrid system and transgenic animal model; localizing, cloning
Cloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
and characterizing receptor tyrosine kinase
Tyrosine kinase
A tyrosine kinase is an enzyme that can transfer a phosphate group from ATP to a protein in a cell. It functions as an "on" or "off" switch in many cellular functions....
gene; constructing chimerical receptors; generating stable-transfectants; and mapping signal transduction pathways based on proteomic profiling. The work has led the isolation and characterization of an ovarian-cancer associated receptor protein kinase and its ligand
Ligand
In coordination chemistry, a ligand is an ion or molecule that binds to a central metal atom to form a coordination complex. The bonding between metal and ligand generally involves formal donation of one or more of the ligand's electron pairs. The nature of metal-ligand bonding can range from...
, and thus Wang has became a member of the first team of scientists who identified novel receptor tyrosine kinase
Receptor tyrosine kinase
Receptor tyrosine kinases s are the high-affinity cell surface receptors for many polypeptide growth factors, cytokines, and hormones. Of the 90 unique tyrosine kinase genes identified in the human genome, 58 encode receptor tyrosine kinase proteins....
genes in human ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer is a cancerous growth arising from the ovary. Symptoms are frequently very subtle early on and may include: bloating, pelvic pain, difficulty eating and frequent urination, and are easily confused with other illnesses....
cells.
In his research at Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic
The Cleveland Clinic is a multispecialty academic medical center located in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. The Cleveland Clinic is currently regarded as one of the top 4 hospitals in the United States as rated by U.S. News & World Report...
as an assistant professor in 1996, Wang has established a transgenic mouse model and successfully demonstrated interferon
Interferon
Interferons are proteins made and released by host cells in response to the presence of pathogens—such as viruses, bacteria, or parasites—or tumor cells. They allow communication between cells to trigger the protective defenses of the immune system that eradicate pathogens or tumors.IFNs belong to...
’s potential for therapeutic intervention against cancer.
Phase of trials
After near ten years doing intensive research at prestigious world-class institutions, Wang has changed his life path again. He switched himself from academic to industry, from basic science to high tech, and from learning to invention. To him, the change wasn’t simply for job, money and making living, but for experience of tool-management, knowledge of component-integration, and execution of systems engineering.In 1997, Wang went to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and spent a few months of working at Roche’s laboratory located in Tsukuba as a principal investigator
Principal investigator
A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....
. There he has put his effort to identify a novel ligand to the kinase receptor by using integrated High-throughput screening
High-throughput screening
High-throughput screening is a method for scientific experimentation especially used in drug discovery and relevant to the fields of biology and chemistry. Using robotics, data processing and control software, liquid handling devices, and sensitive detectors, High-Throughput Screening allows a...
systems that support mapping of docking (molecular) hits and screening of lead compounds. As principal software engineer
Software engineer
A software engineer is an engineer who applies the principles of software engineering to the design, development, testing, and evaluation of the software and systems that make computers or anything containing software, such as computer chips, work.- Overview :...
and data architect
Data architect
A data architect is a person responsible for ensuring that the data assets of an organization are supported by an architecture supporting the organization in achieving its strategic goals. The architecture should cover databases, data integration and the means to get to the data. Usually the data...
working at Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
in 1998-1999, Wang has instrumentally engaged himself on design of the Oracle Clinic Database – one of the most powerful data management systems in medicine, based on relational and object-oriented technologies; and development of an administrative console of healthcare system that extends UI to Oracle database with integrated technologies of XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
, HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
, PL/SQL
PL/SQL
PL/SQL is Oracle Corporation's procedural extension language for SQL and the Oracle relational database...
, JavaBeans
JavaBeans
JavaBeans are reusable software components for Java. Practically, they are classes written in the Java programming language conforming to a particular convention. They are used to encapsulate many objects into a single object , so that they can be passed around as a single bean object instead of as...
, JSP
JavaServer Pages
JavaServer Pages is a Java technology that helps software developers serve dynamically generated web pages based on HTML, XML, or other document types...
and Java. As program director working at Eli Lilly & Company in 2000-2001, Wang led a multidisciplinary research team consisting of pharmaceutical scientists, bioinformatics
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics is the application of computer science and information technology to the field of biology and medicine. Bioinformatics deals with algorithms, databases and information systems, web technologies, artificial intelligence and soft computing, information and computation theory, software...
scientists, software engineers, and validation specialists, in development of the data mining
Data mining
Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...
system that sorts, edits, visualizes and reports data generated from target-identification, preclinical research and clinical trials phases, and the pharmacogenomic data system that supports annotation
Annotation
An annotation is a note that is made while reading any form of text. This may be as simple as underlining or highlighting passages.Annotated bibliographies give descriptions about how each source is useful to an author in constructing a paper or argument...
required for analyzing inter-individual variation and determining genetic polymorphism by implementing statistical algorithms. As vice president of bioinformatics
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics is the application of computer science and information technology to the field of biology and medicine. Bioinformatics deals with algorithms, databases and information systems, web technologies, artificial intelligence and soft computing, information and computation theory, software...
working at Integrated DNA Technologies Inc. in 2002, Wang led a team working on developing genomic match engine which can perform similarity searches, uniqueness determination, motif indication, contig assembly, multi-sequence alignment, and automatic sequence loading.
Phase of practice
At age 15 as a teenager, Wang was fascinated of the labyrinth of brain though it was not more than kind of imagination; at age 22 as a college senior at Wuhan University, Wang has one step further for getting close to entrance of the puzzle by proposing a hypothesis that how the human intelligence could be developed, promoted and advanced; at age 32 as a scientist on brain research in NIH, Wang found a place where he was able to put theoretical concepts of human brain on top of a modern laboratory bench; at age 44 as an inventor and entrepreneur through establishing Pharmacom Microelectronics in 2002, Wang eventually puts his foot at a platform in which he can convert the experimental work to be workable models or real machines, which he called BiochipBiochip
The development of biochips is a major thrust of the rapidly growing biotechnology industry, which encompasses a very diverse range ofresearch efforts including genomics, proteomics, and pharmaceuticals, among other activities...
-based Microsystems
Microelectromechanical systems
Microelectromechanical systems is the technology of very small mechanical devices driven by electricity; it merges at the nano-scale into nanoelectromechanical systems and nanotechnology...
http://www.nsti.org/BioNano2008/showabstract.html?absno=1029http://biophysics.physics.brown.edu/bpjc/JC%20pdf%20paper%20files/Spring%202005/Magnetoresistive-based%20biosensors%20and%20biochips.pdf
At Wang’s perspective, grouped sensing systems can be simulated to have the most important features and functions of human neural system. It is embodied from following four aspects: i) in the way that the distinct sensing terminals synapses are designed to response to stimuli such as sound, light, electronic, temperature, odor, taste or others respectively and deliver the signals to the centre control point (brain) of the sensing system; ii) in the components that built in the sensing system have their mirror entities in an neuron
Neuron
A neuron is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information by electrical and chemical signaling. Chemical signaling occurs via synapses, specialized connections with other cells. Neurons connect to each other to form networks. Neurons are the core components of the nervous...
such as receptive zone, trigger zone, conducting zone, and output zone; iii) in the network that implemented in the sensing system to perform crosstalk among multiple sensing pathways just like what happened in the complex of neural fibers; iv) in the two-way signaling delivery that utilized by the sensing system to transfer input signals from downstream ("dendrite
Dendrite
Dendrites are the branched projections of a neuron that act to conduct the electrochemical stimulation received from other neural cells to the cell body, or soma, of the neuron from which the dendrites project...
" and "axon
Axon
An axon is a long, slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, that conducts electrical impulses away from the neuron's cell body or soma....
" of the sensing system) to upstream ("cortex
Cerebral cortex
The cerebral cortex is a sheet of neural tissue that is outermost to the cerebrum of the mammalian brain. It plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It is constituted of up to six horizontal layers, each of which has a different...
" of the sensing system) and then deliver output message from the upstream to the downstream based on implementing microarrays at terminals of the sensing system and grouping signaling transfer channels as “cord of neural fibers”.
Since Pharmacom was established in 2002, Wang’s attention has been focusing on developing smaller-sized screening, detecting and interpreting systems with faster response, lower cost and higher sensitivity. A series of instruments are designed to be able to perform real-time detection on biomarkers of infectious diseases (e.g. West Niles virus, Mad Cow Disease, AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
, SARS); signature molecules of pathogens (e.g. Escherichia coli O157:H7
Escherichia coli O157:H7
Escherichia coli O157:H7 is an enterohemorrhagic strain of the bacterium Escherichia coli and a cause of foodborne illness. Infection often leads to hemorrhagic diarrhea, and occasionally to kidney failure, especially in young children and elderly persons...
); contaminates of air and water; and epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
factors of allergies(e.g. Flu, Asthma
Asthma
Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
). They undertake all steps in a streamlined analysis from raw sample collection, optional sample separation, captured target identification, specific confirmation triggering and remote reporting.
Wang currently serves as Chairman, President and CEO of Pharmacom Corporation, an Iowa City-headquartered biotech company, consisted of fifteen subordinate companies operated at United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
respectively. The business mainly involves developing portable/implantable biochip
Biochip
The development of biochips is a major thrust of the rapidly growing biotechnology industry, which encompasses a very diverse range ofresearch efforts including genomics, proteomics, and pharmaceuticals, among other activities...
-based microsystems
Microelectromechanical systems
Microelectromechanical systems is the technology of very small mechanical devices driven by electricity; it merges at the nano-scale into nanoelectromechanical systems and nanotechnology...
for monitory, detection, diagnosis and therapy, and producing organic products that naturally extracted from animal organ or plant portion for skincare, energy-enhance, impotency-improvement, cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
-prevention, and diabetes-cure.
Wang is currently a lecture professor of Qingdao Agricultural University Pharmacom College of Biomedical Engineering. During 2010, Wang served as an adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at The University of Iowa College of Engineering.
Wang intends to create a super chain called “education-research-manufacture”. The chain is consisted of three master pierces: “education” on life science and biomedical engineering; “research” on microsystem-related subjects including genomics, proteomics, microarray, microfluidics and microfabrication, and “manufacture” of chip-driven microsystems for monitory, detection, diagnosis and therapy.
Note on publications and patents
Wang has authored a number of scientific papers in the fields of human genomics, immunologyImmunology
Immunology is a broad branch of biomedical science that covers the study of all aspects of the immune system in all organisms. It deals with the physiological functioning of the immune system in states of both health and diseases; malfunctions of the immune system in immunological disorders ; the...
, protein chemistry and neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
, and holds eighteen U.S. patents or provisional patents for genomics
Genomics
Genomics is a discipline in genetics concerning the study of the genomes of organisms. The field includes intensive efforts to determine the entire DNA sequence of organisms and fine-scale genetic mapping efforts. The field also includes studies of intragenomic phenomena such as heterosis,...
software and biosensing devices.
Residence
Wang and his family reside in a national registered historical home in the center of Iowa City, IowaIowa City, Iowa
Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, State of Iowa. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total population of about 67,862, making it the sixth-largest city in the state. Iowa City is the county seat of Johnson County and home to the University of Iowa...
. The Clark House was built by the first governor of the State of Iowa, Robert Lucas (governor)
Robert Lucas (governor)
Robert Lucas was the 12th Governor of the U.S. state of Ohio, serving from 1832 to 1836. He served as the first Governor of Iowa Territory from 1838 to 1841.-Early life:...
’s family during the middle of the 19th century. Over the last 150 years, only five families had lived in this four-storage house prior to the Wang family’s residency. The second resident was Mr. Adesida Clark, a grandson of Abraham Clark
Abraham Clark
Abraham Clark was an American politician and Revolutionary War figure. He was delegate for New Jersey to the Continental Congress where he signed the Declaration of Independence and later served in the United States House of Representatives in both the Second and Third United States Congress, from...
, a co-signer of the Declaration of Independence. The third resident was a world-famous mathematician in early 20th century, Richard P. Baker who educated at Oxford and the University of London, did advanced work on surface models at the University of Chicago and then taught at the University of Iowa during 1905-1937. The fourth resident was Raymond G. Bunge. During middle 1950s he has developed the glycerol medium for preserving sperm, thus developing the first sperm bank
Sperm bank
A sperm bank, semen bank or cryobank is a facility that collects and stores human sperm mainly from sperm donors, primarily for the purpose of achieving pregnancies through third party reproduction, notably by artificial insemination...
in the world, paving the way for human artificial insemination
Artificial insemination
Artificial insemination, or AI, is the process by which sperm is placed into the reproductive tract of a female for the purpose of impregnating the female by using means other than sexual intercourse or natural insemination...
, and the clinical area of infertility treatment was born due to his pioneering work.
Honors and awards
- 05/2007 Named as CEO in American Hightech Enterprises by (US) Wall Street Journal
- 04/2007 Named as Honorary Chairman of the Business Advisory Counsel by (US) Republican National CommitteeRepublican National CommitteeThe Republican National Committee is an American political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is...
- 06/2007 Named as American Entrepreneur by Cambridge Biographies
- 04/2007 Presented by Gazette, in 4-edition article titled “World Class IC global Technology Company Pharmacom Works on Small Scale”
- 08/2006 Presented by a Chinese best-selling book titled “Namecards of a university”, authorized by Liu Daoyu, a well-known educator, and former president of Wuhan University
- 05/2004 Presented by Technology ReviewTechnology ReviewTechnology Review is a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as "The Technology Review", and was re-launched without the "The" in its name on April 23, 1998 under then publisher R. Bruce Journey...
, in the article titled “The silicon guinea pig, Can silicon microchips mimic living organisms?”* - 04/2003 Presented by SmallTimes, in the article of “Working to develop sensor to combat bioterrorism”
- 01/1995 Honored as Linacre Fellow by University of OxfordUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
- 01/1994 Awarded for ICRF Fellowship by (UK) Imperial Cancer Research Fund
- 02/1992 Awarded for NIH Internal Fellowship by (US) National Institutes of HealthNational Institutes of HealthThe National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
- 01/1992 Granted for US Permanent ResidencyPermanent residencyPermanent residency refers to a person's visa status: the person is allowed to reside indefinitely within a country of which he or she is not a citizen. A person with such status is known as a permanent resident....
(towards to US citizenship five years late) by US Department of State as the 1st priority so-called “exceptional foreign talent” recommended by Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the... - 12/1987 Presented by Chinese Central Television in a nationwide 45-min program titled “Talent in Challenging”
- 02/1987 Named as Top 200 Young Scientists by (China) Chinese Academy of Science
- 04/1985 Elected as Member by (UK) Royal Society of ChemistryRoyal Society of ChemistryThe Royal Society of Chemistry is a learned society in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences." It was formed in 1980 from the merger of the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Faraday Society and the Society for Analytical Chemistry with a new...
Professional memberships
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics EngineersInstitute of Electrical and Electronics EngineersThe Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...
- American Association for Cancer ResearchAmerican Association for Cancer ResearchThe American Association for Cancer Research is the world's oldest and largest professional association to advancing cancer research. Based in Philadelphia, AACR focuses on all aspects of cancer research including basic, clinical and translational research into the etiology, prevention, diagnosis,...
- New York Academy of Science
- British Society of Biochemistry
- Royal Society of ChemistryRoyal Society of ChemistryThe Royal Society of Chemistry is a learned society in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences." It was formed in 1980 from the merger of the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Faraday Society and the Society for Analytical Chemistry with a new...
- Chinese Society of UFO
- Chinese Society of Human Sixth Sense
Presentations
- Wang X., Genetic shift, gene fusion and hybrid advantage resulted from the immigration and re-settlement of grouped clans coming from distinctive geographic territories induced by historical events or wars (11/1981), lecture at Wuhan University (Wuhan, China).
- Wang X., Self-unwinding of DNA caused by nitrogen proton’s perturbation: a possible relationship of the activation of proto-oncogenes and the intrinsic instability of DNA duplex (8/1986) Key speech at the 14th International Cancer Congress (Budapest, Hungary).
- Wang X., Design, develop and implement a relational, algorithm-driven, web-enabled and wireless-ready bioinformatics data warehouse (4/2002) Opening Speech as the Annual Meeting of Iowa Bioinformatics Workshop (Ames, Iowa, USA)
- Wang X., Neural nature of biosensing microsystems (9/2007) Lecture at Wuhan University (Wuhan, China).
- Wang X., Architecture of biosensing microsystems (9/2007) Key speech at the 1st IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering (Wuhan, China).
- Wang X., Pharmacom Microsystems (5/2008) Key speech at the Iowa IEEE Annual Meeting (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA).
Publications
- Wang X., The alternative asymmetric distribution of protein-in-nitrogen-atom around axis induces the instabilization of hydrogen bonds in DNA dulex contributed by N-1 of prine or N-7 of pyrimidine, Nature (Chinese), No. 2, 169-189, 6/1987
- Wang X., A theoretical model of negative controlling of protooncogene transcription. Nature (Chinese), No.6, 167-169, 6/1988
- Wang X., Halmela M., Ke S., Jun Y. Microsystems that integrate three-dimensional microarray and multi-layer microfluidics for combinatorial detection of bioagent at single molecule level. USPTO, Publication No: 20070116607; Publication Date: 5/25/2007
- Wang X., Halmela M., Ke S., Jun Y. Gastropod Biological Fluid, Method of Making and Refining and Use. World Intellectual Property Organization, Publication No: 19760WO01, Publication Date: 12/31/2008
Patent applications
- Wang X., etc. Control stick-embedded biosensor that authenticates pilot’s fingerprinting and rejects unscheduled operators or hijackers. USPTO No: 60/403,043, Date of Filing: 08/13/2002
- Wang X., etc. Steering wheel-embedded biosensor that authenticates driver’s fingerprinting, rejects car-stealer, and monitor operator’s physiological activities. USPTO No: 60/406,352 8636, Date of Filing: 08/28/2002
- Wang X., etc. Universal monitoring system for screening, validation, notification and warning of suspicious pathogen sequences possessing the potential of bioterrorism. USPTO No: 60/409,062, Date of Filing: 09/09/2002
- Wang X., etc. Pathogen detection system that has a lab-on-chip and performs single-run DNA sequencing. USPTO No: 60/413.011, Date of Filing: 09/24/2002
- Wang X., etc. Chip-based, database-supported, internet-enabled biosensing system for detecting, validating, warning and notifying of biowarfare pathogen sequences. USPTO No: 60/413,018, 09/24/2002
- Wang X., etc. Microarray-featured affinity-based biosensing system built with nanoparticles and molecularly imprinted polymers. USPTO No: 60/413,017, Date of Filing: 09/24/2002
- Wang X., etc. “MAIDS” (microarray-featured affinity-based imprint-polymerized data-mining empowered sensing): an innovative technology for high throughput molecule screening and drug discovery. USPTO No: USPTO No: 60/418,302, Date of Filing: 10/15/2002
- Wang X., etc. Microarray-featured MIP-fabricated algorithm-driven wireless-ready biosensing system for detection of chemical, biochemical and cellular agents basing on MAIDS technology, USPTO No: 60/425,757, Date of Filing: 11/13/2002
- Wang X., etc. Nanoscale biosensing device that is embedded a lab-on-a-chip, driven by wireless genomics database, and performs analysis of single molecule USPTO No: 60/428,959, Date of Filing: 11/26/2002
- Wang X., etc. Control-stick-embedded biometrics-based microelectronic device that authenticates pilot’s fingerprinting, rejects hijacker, triggers the built-in unmanned landing system and assists the aircraft’s safe landing. USPTO No: 60/431,015, Date of Filing: 12/06/2002
- Wang X., etc. Handheld microelectronics “artificial nose” that can be used for detecting materials of volatility such as liquids solvents, odors and flavors from combat, terrorist or suspicious entity sources. USPTO No: 60/445,905, Date of Filing: 02/10/2003
- Wang X., etc. Microsystems that integrate three-dimensional microarray and multi-layer microfluidics for combinatorial detection of bioagent at single molecule level. USPTO No: 20070116607, Date of Filing: 11/23/2005
- Wang X., etc. Biochip-Based Drug Delivery Microsystems. USPTO No: 60/937,121, Date of Filing: 06/28/2007
- Wang X., etc. The Biomembranes for Skin-Renew, Wound-Repair and Scar-Removal. USPTO No: 60/937,008, Date of Filing: 06/28/2007
- Wang X., etc. Microfluidics/Microarray-Facilitated Microsystems for Both Diagnosis and Therapy of Bodyfluid-Related Diseases 06/28/2007 USPTO No: 60/937,642, Date of Filing: 06/28/2007
- Wang X., etc. Biodetection Microsystems’ Non-Centrifugal Turnplate Performing Clockwise DNA Extraction or Protein Purification. USPTO No: 60/937,852, Date of Filing: 06/28/2007
- Wang X., etc. Intelligent Drug Delivery Microsystem for Prevention, Warning and Instant Therapy of Heart Attack. USPTO No: 61057845, Date of Filing: 05/31/2008
- Wang X., etc. Gastropod Biological Fluid, Method of Making and Refining and Use. USPTO No: 19760WO01, Date of Filing: 06/24/2008
Further reading
- Wang X. W. "Microsystems that integrate three-dimensional microarray and multi-layer microfluidics for combinatorial detection of bioagent at single molecule level" Publications of USPTO, 2007
- T. Osipova, Z. Sokolova, T. Ryabykh, V. Karaseva, M. Modorsky, V. Matveev, A. Baryshnikov. "Biochip-Based Test System for Cancer Diagnostics. Simultaneous Quantitation of Total and Free Forms of Prostate-Specific Antigen" Nanotech 2008 Conference
External links
- William Wang presented by MIT Technology Review
- William Wang chaired at Chinese IEEE conference
- William Wang awarded lecture professorship at Qingdao Agricultural University
- William Wang lecturing on biomicrosystems at Qingdao Agricultural University
- William Wang presented by SmallTimes“Working to develop sensor to combat bioterrorism”
- William Wang introduced by University of Iowa Press Release "Biotechnology firm Pharmacom locates at UI's Technology Innovation Center"
- William Wang featured in《BAIDU WIKIPEDIA》(百度百科)
- William Wang featured in in 《HUDONG WIKIPEDIA》(互动百科)
- William Wang featured in《ABC of People》(中国人物)
- William Wang featured in 《Huchang County Annals》(汉川县志)
- William Wang featured in "People at Wuhan University" (武大人物)
- William Wang introduced by CCTV (China Central Television) in the Program of "Science and Technology of China" (《科技中国》栏目) "William's Story and Science of Snails" (王小村的 "蜗金" 故事)