AWARDEE OF LIEF SCIENCES PRIZE

HONG GUOFAN

Abstract

Hong Guofan,molecular biologist, research professor of Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, CAS; born on 24 Dec, 1939 in Ningbo, ZhejiangProvince;Graduated in 1964,from Fudan University; 1979-1983, research fellow in F. Sanger's lab of MRC LMB, Cambridge, UK; head of National Center for Gene Research, CAS; editor of DNA Sequence, UK; advisory editor of Trends in Plant Science, UK; member of Third World Academy of Sciences.
He has made contribution to DNA research and genome science. In 1978, He discovered that the gradient electric frield counteracted diffusion of nucleic acids while they moved in the frield, which led to the increase by more than 30% in base calling in DNA sequencing. He designed a method, by which sequencing single stranded DNA in both orientations was made possible. He established a heat stable DNA sequencing system, and proposed a molecular model, by which the nodulation genes in Rhizobia were regulated. He designed a strategy, called “a rapid and accurate BAC-fing erprinting-anchoring strategy”, which was successfully used in the construction of BAC-contig map of the rice genome (12chromosomes, 4.3×10８bp) with 92% genome coverage by the BAC contigs constructed.
Hong was elected member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1997.