Alice S. Huang
Born (1939-03-22) 22 March 1939
Nanchang, China
NationalityAmerican
Alma materWellesley College
Johns Hopkins University
Known forMolecular biology of vesicular stomatitis virus
Spouse
​
(m. 1968)​
Children1
AwardsEli Lilly Award in Immunology and Microbiology (1977)
Alice C. Evans Award (2001)
Scientific career
FieldsMicrobiology
InstitutionsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst
Johns Hopkins University
Keck Graduate Institute

Alice S. Huang (simplified Chinese: 黄诗厚; traditional Chinese: 黃詩厚; pinyin: Huáng Shīhòu; Wade–Giles: Huang Shih-hou;[1] is an American biologist specialized in microbiology and virology. She served as President of AAAS during the 2010–2011 term.[2]

Early years

Alice Huang's father, Quentin K. Y. Huang, was orphaned at age 12 in Anhui, China and was taken in by a missionary. He was later educated at the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Divinity School, returning to China as an Anglican bishop. He later married Huang's mother, Grace Betty Soong.[3]

Alice Huang’s mother, Grace Betty Soong, was from Jiangxi Province where her family had large land holdings. Grace’s father appreciated the practical work of Christian missionaries and allowed several of his children to become Christian instead of remaining Buddhist.[3]

Alice Huang was born in Nanchang, the capital city of Jiangxi Province, in 1939.[1] Huang was raised Christian.[3] Huang emigrated to the U.S. in 1949.[4]

She attended St. Mary's Hall-Doane Academy (in Burlington, New Jersey), the National Cathedral School (in Washington, D.C.), and Wellesley College (in Wellesley, Massachusetts). Huang received B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. (in microbiology in 1966) degrees all from Johns Hopkins University.

Career

Research

Alice Huang's research focused on defective interfering particles (DIPs) which can be utilized to combat viruses. DIPs are composed of viral structural proteins and sets of DNA or RNA which are incomplete.[5] These DIPs will interfere in replication of the virus because they are reproduced at the expense of a standard viral particle. Alice Huang's work on DIPs has been utilized to combat cancer, HIV, and plant related diseases.[6]

At Johns Hopkins and MIT her work for Robert R. Wagner and future husband David Baltimore was "to purify and characterize interfering viral particles".[1] They studied the inhibition of cellular RNA synthesis by nonreplicating vesicular stomatitis virus, known to infect horses, cattle and swine.[7]

At the time, biologists knew the central dogma to be DNA to RNA to protein, with DNA replication as the way to replicate ones genome. Dr. Huang and Dr. Baltimore unraveled that RNA viruses were different and used RNA polymerase to replicate its RNA genome, but they discovered an enzyme, reverse transcriptase (in a mouse leukemia retrovirus), that converts RNA to DNA (involved in a process now known as reverse transcription). Dr. Baltimore later received the Nobel Prize in 1975 for his discovery.[8][9]

Huang and Baltimore coauthored a paper with Martha Stampfer titled "Ribonucleic acid synthesis of vesicular stomatitis virus, II. An RNA polymerase in the virion." This paper went on to show that “the virions of vesicular stomatitis virus contain an enzyme that catalyzes the incorporation of ribonucleotides into RNA”.[7]

At Harvard Medical School, Huang continued to study how mutant strains produced by rabies-like virus interfered with further growth of the viral infection. In 1977, she was awarded the Eli Lilly Award in Microbiology and Immunology for this research.[10] From 1971 to 1991, Huang taught at Harvard Medical School.

Administration

At Harvard, Huang served as coordinator of the Virology Unit at the Channing Laboratories of Infectious Diseases at Boston Medical Center for two years, and as director of the "Virus-Host Interactions in Cancer" training program (funded by the National Cancer Institute) for fifteen years.

Huang directed the Laboratories of Infectious Diseases at Boston Children's Hospital in 1979, where she studied viral diseases in pediatric patients.[1] At New York University, Dr. Huang participated in a project in science education and received a grant that focused on improving teachers’ preparation and ability to engage students in science exploration and discovery.[11]

Huang is an emeritus member of the Board of Trustees of the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences (KGI).[12]

Huang is a former trustee of the Waksman Foundation for Microbiology and a trustee of the Public Agenda. She was pointed a Council Member of the California Council on Science and Technology in 2004, and served for two terms.

Controversies

In June 2015, Huang wrote a controversial advice article[13] for the Science Careers website. A female postdoctoral scholar asked what she should do in response to her advisor looking down her shirt. Huang, who is married to her own postdoctoral advisor,[14] replied, "I suggest you put up with it, with good humor if you can."[15]

Following strong reaction on social media,[16] the article was removed within hours of being posted. After the article was removed, Science Careers tweeted, "We apologize for printing it. It does not reflect our values or standards".[17] A fuller apology claimed the article had not "undergone proper editorial review prior to posting."[18]

In an interview,[19] Huang stood by her advice, saying, "What I try to do is give advice from experience, and to give the advice that would serve the writer well into the long-term future. I’m taking their best interests to heart rather than being in one camp or another camp or trying to push my own political agendas." She said she hoped to write a follow-up column with other people’s suggestions for dealing with the situation.

Huang's explanation was criticized for implying that "being against sexual harassment is a 'camp' or political agenda."[20]

Awards and honors

Professional Societies

  • 1966 - Sigma Xi Honor Society, Johns Hopkins Chapter
  • 1967 - American Society for Microbiology (president 1989)
  • 1971 - American Association for the Advancement of Science (fellow, ‘00, president 2010)
  • 1974 - American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
  • 1978 - Association of Women in Science (fellow)
  • 1979 - Infectious Diseases Society of America (fellow)
  • 1981 - American Society for Virology
  • 1982 - American Academy of Microbiology (fellow)
  • 1988 - Society of Chinese Bioscientists of America
  • 1990 - Academia Sinica, Republic of China
  • 1990 - New York Academy of Sciences
  • 1995 - Pacific Council on International Policy [22]

Personal life

Huang was married in 1968 to Dr. David Baltimore. They have one daughter.[23]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 AsianWeek Staff Report (April 3, 2009). "Chinese American Heroines: Alice S. Huang". AsianWeek. Archived from the original on 2009-08-17. Retrieved January 1, 2010.
  2. ↑ "AAAS Presidents". American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  3. 1 2 3 Bhaskaran, Hillary (1999). "Alice Huang: Keeping Science and Life in Focus". Caltech News. Vol. 33, no. 1. Archived from the original on 22 February 2018. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
  4. ↑ "Alice S. Huang : The Rockefeller Foundation". The Rockefeller Foundation.
  5. ↑ Hannon, J. (2006). Alice Huang. Alice Huang, 1.
  6. ↑ Huang, Alice S.; Baltimore, David (April 1970). "Defective Viral Particles and Viral Disease Processes". Nature. 226 (5243): 325–327. Bibcode:1970Natur.226..325H. doi:10.1038/226325a0. PMID 5439728. S2CID 4184206.
  7. 1 2 Baltimore, David; Huang, Alice S.; Stampfer, Martha (June 1970). "Ribonucleic Acid Synthesis of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus, II. An RNA Polymerase in the Virion*". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 66 (2): 572–576. Bibcode:1970PNAS...66..572B. doi:10.1073/pnas.66.2.572. PMC 283083. PMID 4317920.
  8. ↑ Chung, King-Thom (2010). "Alice Shih-Hou Huang (1939-)". Women pioneers of medical research : biographies of 25 outstanding scientists. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. pp. 184–190. ISBN 978-0-7864-2927-1. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
  9. ↑ Bailey, Martha J. (1998). American Women in Science: 1950 to the Present : a Biographical Dictionary. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-87436-921-2.
  10. ↑ "Alice S. Huang". Chinese American Faculty Association, Southern California. USC University of Southern California, Department of Physics & Astronomy. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
  11. ↑ Haley-Oliphant, A.E. (1997). "Alice Huang, Microbiologist/Molecular Geneticist, 1939-present". In Matyas, M.L.; Haley-Oliphant, A.E. (eds.). Women Life Scientists: Past, Present, and Future: Connecting Role Models to the Classroom Curriculum. Bethesda, MD: American Physiological Society. pp. 231–240. OCLC 932451754.
  12. ↑ "KGI Emeritus Trustee Alice Huang, PhD, Elected President of AAAS". Claremont, California: Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. February 25, 2009. Archived from the original on 2014-03-28. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
  13. ↑ Huang, Alice (1 June 2015). "Help! My adviser won't stop looking down my shirt!". Science Careers. Archived from the original on June 1, 2015. Retrieved 2015-06-01.
  14. ↑ "WEDDINGS; TK Baltimore, Jay Konopka". New York Times. 2001-10-07.
  15. ↑ Careers Staff, Science (4 June 2015). "Better advice for 'Bothered'". Science. doi:10.1126/science.caredit.a1500145.
  16. ↑ Merlan, Anna (June 2015). "Science Advice Columnist: Just Let Your Adviser Stare at Your Tits". Jezebel. Retrieved 1 June 2015.
  17. ↑ Science Careers [@ScienceCareers] (June 1, 2015). "Today's column by A. Huang has been removed.We apologize for printing it. It does not reflect our values or standards" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  18. ↑ Science Careers Staff (1 June 2015). "Editor's note". Science. doi:10.1126/science.caredit.a1500140.
  19. ↑ Flaherty, Colleen (2 June 2015). "AAAS pulls 'sexist' advice column amid outcry from readers". Inside Higher Ed.
  20. ↑ Hills, Kelly [@rocza] (June 2, 2015). "Particularly egregious: Huang's comments implying being against sexual harassment is a "camp" or political agenda" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  21. ↑ Office, SoM Development and Alumni Relations. "SoM Alumni Awards". Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2016-12-12.
  22. ↑ "Member Directory - Pacific Council on International Policy". www.pacificcouncil.org.
  23. ↑ "WEDDINGS; TK Baltimore, Jay Konopka". The New York Times. 7 October 2001.
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