Chi-Huey Wong

Born on 3 August, 1948

Professor Wong received his B.S. (1970) and M.S. (1977) degrees from National Taiwan University, and Ph.D. (1982) in Chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then worked at Harvard University as a postdoctoral fellow for another year. He started his independent career as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M University in 1983 and became Associate Professor in 1986 and Professor in 1987. He was Professor and Ernest W. Hahn Chair in Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute (1989-2006) and Director of the Genomics Research Center at Academia Sinica, Taipei (2003-2006). Since October 2006, he has been President of Academia Sinica and Professor of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute and National Taiwan University.

Professor Wong is a recipient of The Searle Scholar Award in Biomedical Sciences (1985), the Presidential Young Investigator Award in Chemistry (1986), the American Chemical Society A. C. Cope Scholar Award (1993), the Roy Whistler Award of the International Carbohydrate Organization (1994), the American Chemical Society Harrison Howe Award in Chemistry (1998), the American Chemical Society Claude S. Hudson Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry (1999), the International Enzyme Engineering Award (1999), the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2000), The American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2005), the F.A. Cotton Medal (2008) for Excellence in Chemical Research, and the American Chemical Society Arthur C. Cope Award (2012).

He is a member of Academia Sinica, Taipei, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS). He was Chairman of the Executive Board of Editors of the Tetrahedron Publications (2006-2008), Editor-in-Chief of Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry (1993-2010), a board member of the US National Research Council on Chemical Sciences and Technology (2000–2003), a scientific advisor of the Max-Planck Institute (2000–2008), and the Chief Science Advisor of the Executive Yuan, Taiwan (2008-2011). He is currently an Editorial Advisory Board member for the Journal of American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, Advanced Synthesis and Catalysis, and Current Opinion in Chemical Biology. He is also a member of Board of Scientific Governors of the Scripps Research Institute, the Steering Committee of the Lilly TB Drug Discovery Initiative, and the Chief Science Advisor of the Ministry of Science, Taiwan.

His research interests are in the areas of bioorganic and synthetic chemistry and biocatalysis, including synthesis of complex carbohydrates, glycoproteins and small-molecule probes for the study of carbohydrate-mediated biological recognition, post-translational glycosylation, and drug discovery. He is the author and co-author of over 700 publications, 100 patents, and four books (Enzymes in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Combinatorial Chemistry in Biology, Catalysis from A to Z, and Carbohydrate-Based Drug Discovery).