Alice S. Huang (;
is an American
biologist
A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...
specialized in
microbiology
Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, prot ...
and
virology
Virology is the Scientific method, scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host (biology), ...
. She served as President of
AAAS
AAAS may refer to:
* American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a learned society and center for policy research; the publisher of the journal ''Dædalus''
* American Association for the Advancement of Science, an organization that supports scientifi ...
during the 2010-2011 term.
Early years
Alice Huang's father, Quentin K. Y. Huang, was orphaned at age 12 in
Anhui, China
Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...
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.
Alice Huang’s mother, Grace Betty Soong, was from Kiangsi 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.
Alice Huang was born in
Nanchang, the capital city of
Jiangxi Province
Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north into hi ...
, in 1939.
Huang was raised Christian.
Huang emigrated to the U.S. in 1949.
She attended
St. Mary's Hall-Doane Academy (in Burlington, New Jersey), the
National Cathedral School
National Cathedral School (NCS) is an independent Episcopal private day school for girls in grades 4–12 located on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by philanthropist and suffragist Phoe ...
(in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
), and
Wellesley College
Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...
(in
Wellesley, Massachusetts). Huang received B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. (in microbiology in 1966) degrees all from
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
.
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. 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.
At Johns Hopkins and MIT her work for
Robert R. Wagner and future husband
David Baltimore
David Baltimore (born March 7, 1938) is an American biologist, university administrator, and 1975 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He is President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technolo ...
was "to purify and characterize interfering viral particles".
They studied the inhibition of cellular RNA synthesis by nonreplicating vesicular stomatitis virus, known to infect horses, cattle and swine.
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.
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”.
[
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.] 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
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...
) 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. 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.
Huang is an emeritus member of the Board of Trustees
A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
of the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences
Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) is a private graduate school in Claremont, California. Founded by Henry Riggs in 1997, it is the seventh and newest member of the Claremont Colleges.
History
Henry Riggs, then president of Harvey Mudd College, e ...
(KGI).
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
The California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) is an independent, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization designed to offer expert advice to the California state government and to recommend solutions to science and technology-related polic ...
in 2004, and served for two terms.
Controversies
In June 2015, Huang wrote a controversial advice article 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, replied, "I suggest you put up with it, with good humor if you can."
Following strong reaction on social media, 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". A fuller apology claimed the article had not "undergone proper editorial review prior to posting."
In an interview, 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."
Awards and honors
* 1977 - Eli Lilly Award in Immunology and Microbiology (from the American Society for Microbiology)
* 1982 - Doctor of Science (Honorary), Wheaton College
* 1987 - Doctor of Science (Honorary), from Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States.
...
* 1991 - Doctor of Science (Honorary), Medical College of Pennsylvania
Drexel University College of Medicine is the medical school of Drexel University, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The medical school represents the consolidation of two medical schools: the first U.S. medical schoo ...
* 1999 - Achievement Award (from the Chinese-American Faculty Association of Southern California)
* 2001 - the Alice C. Evans Award
The ASM Alice C. Evans Award for Advancement of Women is an award given by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) to an ASM member who has made outstanding contributions to the status of women in microbiology and related sciences. The award ai ...
(from the American Society for Microbiology)
* 2015 - The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Distinguished Alumnus/Alumna Award
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
Personal life
Huang was married in 1968 to Dr. David Baltimore
David Baltimore (born March 7, 1938) is an American biologist, university administrator, and 1975 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He is President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technolo ...
. They have one daughter.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Huang, Alice S.
1939 births
American women biologists
Chinese women biologists
Doane Academy alumni
Women virologists
20th-century American women scientists
21st-century American women scientists
American people of Chinese descent
Harvard University faculty
Johns Hopkins University alumni
Living people
American virologists
People from Nanchang
Biologists from Jiangxi
National Cathedral School alumni
Wellesley College alumni
Chinese science writers
Writers from Jiangxi
Chinese Civil War refugees
American women academics