Yuet Wai Kan

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The native form of this personal name is Kan Yuet Wai. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
Yuet Wai Kan

FRS, Member (NAS), Founding Member (ASHK)
簡悅威
Born (1936-06-11) June 11, 1936 (age 87)[3]
British Hong Kong[2]
NationalityAmerican
EducationUniversity of Hong Kong (MBBS)[2]
Known forResearch of single-nucleotide polymorphism
Prenatal testing of blood disease
SpouseAlvera Limauro Kan[4]
Children2
AwardsWilliam Allan Award
Canada Gairdner International Award
Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award
Shaw Prize in Life Science & Medicine[1]
Scientific career
FieldsHuman genetics
Hematology
InstitutionsPeter Bent Brigham Hospital
University of Pittsburgh
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
McGill University
University of Pennsylvania
Boston Children's Hospital
Harvard University
San Francisco General Hospital
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
University of California, San Francisco[2]
Yuet Wai Kan
Traditional Chinese簡悅威
Simplified Chinese简悦威

Yuet Wai Kan FRS (Chinese: 簡悅威; Jyutping: Gaan2 Jyut6 Wai1; born June 11, 1936), is a Chinese-American geneticist and hematologist. He is the current Louis K. Diamond Chair in Hematology[5][6] and a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco.[7] He is a former president of the American Society of Hematology.[8]

Early life and education[edit]

Kan is of Shunde, Guangdong, descent,[9] and was born in Hong Kong to the prominent Kan family. His father, Tong Po Kan,[10] was a co-founder of Bank of East Asia,[9] and had 14 children;[11] Kan is the youngest. Kan's brother, Yuet-keung Kan, was the Senior Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and the Executive Council of Hong Kong, and a former chairman of the Bank of East Asia.[12]

Kan started his education at True Light Elementary School, not long before the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. He entered Wah Yan College, Hong Kong after the war and graduated in 1952.[2] He then followed his father's wish and studied medicine in the University of Hong Kong (HKU), staying at the residence of Morrison Hall[13] and obtaining his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree in 1958, with a distinction in Social Medicine, Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrics and Gynecology.[2][1][14][15]

The University of Hong Kong awarded Kan a Doctor of Science in 1980.[1][14]

Career[edit]

After spending 2 years at Queen Mary Hospital for residency and internship, at the advice of David Todd, a professor at the HKU Department of Medicine,[16] Kan went to the United States in 1960 to work and be trained in various North American institutions. He first went to Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston (now part of Brigham and Women's Hospital)[17] to work and learn hematology under Frank H. Gardner, during which he became interested in research.[2] He then moved to the University of Pittsburgh to finish his clinical training and residency under Jack Myers,[2][18] and then joined Vernon Ingram at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to learn about hemoglobin.[13] Kan then joined Royal Victoria Hospital at McGill University in Montreal as a fellow in hematology under Louis Lowenstein.[13][19] He became interested in thalassemia after attending to an infant with alpha-thalassemia.[19]

After the fellowship, Kan briefly teamed up with Frank H. Gardner again at the University of Pennsylvania, to which Gardner recently moved. He moved again in 1970, when a former colleague of his at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital invited him to study thalassemia at Boston Children's Hospital,[2] and became an assistant professor at Harvard University.[20] In 1972, Kan went to San Francisco General Hospital to become the Chief of Hematology Service, and was, at the same time, appointed an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).[15] In 1976, he became an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a position from which he retired in 2003.[21] Kan was promoted to full professor in 1977 at the Department of Medicine of UCSF, and was cross-appointed to the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics in 1979.[15] In 1983, he was appointed Head of the Division of Genetics and Molecular Hematology at the Department of Medicine,[20] and became the Louis K. Diamond Chair in Hematology.[15][22]

Kan sat on the President's Committee on the National Medal of Science, which reviews nominations for the award, from 1988 to 1990,[23] and was the President of the American Society of Hematology in 1990.[24][25] He was also the President of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America from 1998 to 1999,[26] and was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Croucher Foundation, Hong Kong, from 1991 to 2011.[27]

In 1993, Kan was appointed to head the newly established Gene Therapy Core Center at UCSF.[28]

Kan has also served on the Committee on Human Rights of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine) from 2000 until at least 2008,[29][30][31] and was the Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of Hong Kong from 1990 to 1994,[29][32] which was dissolved in 2005.[33]

Since 1994,[16] Kan has been an advisor at the Hong Kong-based Qiu Shi Science and Technologies Foundation, which supports science in China.[34]

Research[edit]

Kan is best known for his research in the etiology of thalassemia, and has significant contribution to the prenatal testing of hemoglobinopathy and the research in single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).[35][36]

Kan and his collaborators found the deletion of a gene was the cause of alpha-thalassemia,[37] the first demonstration of its kind for any disease.[15] He was also the first to establish that a single DNA mutation could lead to a human disease, and the first to diagnose a human disease using DNA.[38] His 1979 report on the cause of beta-thalassemia established the disease-causing ability of SNPs, where he found that a nonsense mutation, a type of point mutation, led to the truncation of the beta chains of hemoglobin.[39][40]

In prenatal testing research, he discovered, in 1972, that hemoglobin protein chains could be isolated from fetal blood, and the presence of abnormal hemoglobin chains signified sickle cell disease, allowing for the detection of the disease before birth.[41] Then, building on his finding that alpha-thalassemia was caused by a gene deletion, he designed a DNA-based test for the deletion,[42] the first time a DNA test was used for diagnosing a human condition.[2] In 1978, he discovered a SNP next to the HBB gene that is associated with the HBB mutation that causes sickle cell disease. Digesting this DNA sequence with special enzymes (known as restriction enzymes) yielded specific DNA fragments, the sets of which varied according to the SNP variation and, by association, the presence of the sickle cell disease-causing mutation,[43][44] suggesting an indirect diagnostic method for the disease and marking the first use of SNPs in genetic linkage analysis of human diseases.[2]

In the recent decade, Kan has applied gene therapy and genome editing techniques to treat thalassemia, sickle cell disease and blood cancer.[45][46][47][48]

Personal life[edit]

Kan married Alvera Limauro in 1964 in Boston.[13] They met each other on their first day at Frank H. Gardner's lab at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now part of Brigham and Women's Hospital)[17] in Boston, but did not started dating 2 years later.[13] They have 2 daughters, Susan, a lawyer in San Francisco,[4] and Deborah,[4] a former Wall Street Journal reporter in Hong Kong and the founder an online information platform for Alzheimer's disease called Being Patient,[49][50] and 5 grandchildren.[13] As of 2019, Kan and his wife live in San Francisco.[13]

Honors and awards[edit]

The Y W Kan Professorship in Natural Sciences at the University of Hong Kong was created in Kan's honor.[76]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d "Prof Yuet-Wai KAN". Hong Kong Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on December 27, 2021. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Autobiography of Yuet-Wai Kan". The Shaw Prize Foundation. Archived from the original on December 27, 2021. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
  3. ^ "Kan Yuet-wai". Chinese Child Health International. Archived from the original on November 3, 2004. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  4. ^ a b c "Heroes in Health and Healing: Yuet Wai Kan, Leader in Human Genetics". University of California, San Francisco. Archived from the original on February 12, 2022. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
  5. ^ "Yuet Wai Kan, MBBS, DSc, FRS". University of California, San Francisco. Archived from the original on July 30, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
  6. ^ "Y.W. Kan, MD, FRS". University of California, San Francisco. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
  7. ^ "Yuet Kan, MD". University of California, San Francisco. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
  8. ^ "Yuet Wai Kan". American Society of Hematology. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
  9. ^ a b 馮, 邦彥 (2020). "銀行翹楚：東亞與恒生". 香港華資財團(1841-2020) (in Chinese). Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (Hong Kong). p. 85. ISBN 9789620447068. Archived from the original on January 30, 2022. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  10. ^ "失去信心 見完鄧小平淡出政壇". Apple Daily (in Chinese). September 23, 2012. Archived from the original on March 2, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  11. ^ 鄭, 宏泰; 黃, 紹倫 (2014). "富不過三代的假象與現實：家業長青的例子和特徵". 商城記──香港家族企業縱橫談 (in Chinese). Hong Kong: Chung Hwa Book Company (Hong Kong). p. 274. ISBN 9789888310470. Archived from the original on January 29, 2022. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  12. ^ "政商強人 倡議成立廉署 簡悅強走完99年人生". Apple Daily. September 23, 2012. Archived from the original on March 2, 2020. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g Ing, Todd S; Lau, Keith K; Chan, Joseph M; Tang, Hon-Lok; Hadsell, Angela T; Chan, Laurence K (2019). "Yuet Wai Kan 簡悅威 1991 Albert Lasker Clinical Medical". Nobel and Lasker Laureates of Chinese Descent: In Literature and Science. Singapore: World Scientific. doi:10.1142/9716. ISBN 9789814704601. S2CID 164035712. Archived from the original on January 29, 2022. Retrieved January 29, 2022.
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  18. ^ a b Bittel, Jason (2015). "Yuet Wai Kan Wants to Reprogram Blood". PittMed. University of Pittsburgh. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022. Retrieved January 1, 2022.
  19. ^ a b Hampton, Tracy (2006). "Yuet Wai Kan, MD". JAMA. 295 (9): 991. doi:10.1001/jama.295.9.991. PMID 16507792. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
  20. ^ a b c d Kazazian Jr., Haig H. (1986). "The William Allan Memorial Award presented to Yuet Wai Kan". American Journal of Human Genetics. 38 (1): 1–3. PMC 1684715. PMID 3511682.
  21. ^ "Yuet Wai Kan, MD, DSc". Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Archived from the original on January 5, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
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  23. ^ "UCSF geneticist Appointed to White House Committee". UCSF News. San Francisco: University of California, San Francisco. 1988. Archived from the original on January 29, 2022. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
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  26. ^ "Past Presidents". Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America. Archived from the original on January 20, 2022. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  27. ^ "Professor Yuet Wai Kan, Trustee and Chairman of the Croucher Foundation". Croucher Foundation Seventh Report 2011 - 2015 (PDF). Hong Kong: Croucher Foundation. 2016. p. 16. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 20, 2022. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  28. ^ "Kan to head new Gene Therapy Core Center at UCSF". Synapse. No. 38. University of California, San Francisco. October 21, 1993. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  29. ^ a b c d e "2006 SCBA Keynote Speakers" (PDF). Asia Pacific Biotech News. Vol. 10, no. 13. Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America. 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 20, 2022. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  30. ^ "Yuet Wai Kan, CHR Member". Archived from the original on November 9, 2008. Retrieved November 25, 2008.
  31. ^ "THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES" (PDF). National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. November 26, 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 4, 2022. Retrieved January 4, 2022.
  32. ^ "Yuet Wai Kan An Interview". Synapse. No. 36. University of California, San Francisco. May 21, 1992. Archived from the original on January 10, 2022. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  33. ^ "Other Departments, Centres, Units and School". University of Hong Kong. Archived from the original on May 27, 2022. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
  34. ^ "Professor Yuet Wai KAN". Qiu Shi Science and Technologies Foundation. Archived from the original on January 18, 2022. Retrieved January 14, 2022.
  35. ^ "An Essay on Prize One in Life Science and Medicine 2004". The Shaw Prize Foundation. Archived from the original on January 27, 2022. Retrieved January 27, 2022.
  36. ^ "Yuet-wai Kan, Louis K. Diamond Professor of Haematology, Medicine and Laboratory Medicine at UC San Francisco" (PDF). The University of Hong Kong Bulletin. Vol. 6, no. 1. University of Hong Kong. October 30, 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 29, 2022. Retrieved January 29, 2022.
  37. ^ Taylor, JM; Dozy, A; Kan, YW; Varmus, HE; Lieinjo, LE; Ganesan, J; Todd, D (1974). "Gene deletion as the cause of α thalassaemia: Genetic lesion in homozygous α thalassaemia (hydrops fetalis)". Nature. 251 (5474): 392–393. Bibcode:1974Natur.251..392T. doi:10.1038/251392a0. PMID 4424635. S2CID 4154498. Retrieved January 26, 2022.
  38. ^ a b Ravven, Wallace (July 21, 2006). "UCSF genetics pioneer Y.W. Kan earns Lifetime Achievement Award". University of California, San Francisco. Archived from the original on January 22, 2022. Retrieved January 22, 2022.
  39. ^ Chang, Judy C.; Kan, Yuet Wai (1979). "β0 thalassemia, a nonsense mutation in man" (PDF). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 76 (6): 2886–2889. Bibcode:1979PNAS...76.2886C. doi:10.1073/pnas.76.6.2886. PMC 383714. PMID 88735. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 26, 2022. Retrieved January 26, 2022.
  40. ^ "Yuet Wai Kan". Archived from the original on September 22, 2008. Retrieved November 25, 2008.
  41. ^ Kan, Yuet Wai; Dozy, Andrée M.; Alter, Blanche P.; Frigoletto, Fredric D.; Nathan, David G. (1972). "Detection of the Sickle Gene in the Human Fetus — Potential for Intrauterine Diagnosis of Sickle-Cell Anemia". The New England Journal of Medicine. 287 (1): 1–5. doi:10.1056/NEJM197207062870101. PMID 5029215. Retrieved January 26, 2022.
  42. ^ Kan, Yuet Wai; Golbus, Mitchell S.; Dozy, Andree M. (1976). "Prenatal Diagnosis of α-Thalassemia — Clinical Application of Molecular Hybridization". The New England Journal of Medicine. 295 (21): 1165–1167. doi:10.1056/NEJM197611182952104. PMID 980019. Retrieved January 27, 2022.
  43. ^ Kan, Yuet Wai; Dozy, Andree M. (1978). "Polymorphism of DNA sequence adjacent to human beta-globin structural gene: relationship to sickle mutation" (PDF). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 75 (11): 5631–5635. Bibcode:1978PNAS...75.5631K. doi:10.1073/pnas.75.11.5631. PMC 393021. PMID 281713. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 27, 2022. Retrieved January 27, 2022.
  44. ^ Cook-Deegan, Robert M. (1994). "Mapping Our Genes". The Gene Wars: Science, Politics, and the Human Genome. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 34. hdl:10161/8990. ISBN 0393313999. Archived from the original on January 30, 2022.
  45. ^ Chang, Judy C.; Lin, Ye; Kan, Yuet Wai (2006). "Correction of the sickle cell mutation in embryonic stem cells" (PDF). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 103 (4): 1036–1040. Bibcode:2006PNAS..103.1036C. doi:10.1073/pnas.0510177103. PMC 1326143. PMID 16407095. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 28, 2022. Retrieved January 28, 2022.
  46. ^ Xie, Fei; Ye, Lin; Chang, Judy C.; Beyer, Ashley I.; Wang, Jiaming; Muench, Marcus O.; Kan, Yuet Wai (2014). "Seamless gene correction of β-thalassemia mutations in patient-specific iPSCs using CRISPR/Cas9 and piggyBac". Genome Research. 24 (9): 1526–1533. doi:10.1101/gr.173427.114. PMC 4158758. PMID 25096406. Archived from the original on January 28, 2022. Retrieved January 28, 2022.
  47. ^ Ye, Lin; Wang, Jiaming; Tan, Yuting; Beyer, Ashley I.; Xie, Fei; Muench, Marcus O.; Kan, Yuet Wai (2016). "Genome editing using CRISPR-Cas9 to create the HPFH genotype in HSPCs: An approach for treating sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 113 (38): 10661–10665. Bibcode:2016PNAS..11310661Y. doi:10.1073/pnas.1612075113. PMC 5035856. PMID 27601644.
  48. ^ Tan, Yu-Ting; Ye, Lin; Fei, Xie; Wang, Jiaming; Müschen, Markus; Chen, Sai-Juan; Kan, Yuet Wai; Liu, Han (2020). "CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene deletion efficiently retards the progression of Philadelphia-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia in a p210 BCR-ABL1T315I mutation mouse model". Haematologica. 105 (5): e232–e236. doi:10.3324/haematol.2019.229013. PMC 7193494. PMID 31537693. Archived from the original on January 28, 2022. Retrieved January 28, 2022.
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  76. ^ "Y W Kan Professorship in Natural Sciences". University of Hong Kong. Archived from the original on January 28, 2022. Retrieved January 28, 2022.
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