Daisy Yen Wu facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Daisy Yen Wu
严彩韵
Daisy Yen and Hsien Wu with their children, circa 1950s
Born	Yan Caiyun (1902-06-12)12 June 1902 Shanghai, China
Died	27 May 1993(1993-05-27) (aged 90) Ithaca, New York, US
Nationality	Chinese
Other names	Daisy Yen
Occupation	Biochemist, philanthropist
Years active	1923–1993
Spouse(s)	Hsien Wu ​ ​ (m. 1924; died 1959)​
Children	Evelyn Wu, Dorothea Wu, Ray Wu, Christine Wu, Victor Wu
Parent(s)	Yan Zijun [zh] (father)
Relatives	Yan Xinhou [zh] (grandfather) Yan Lianyun [zh] (sister) Juliana Young Koo (sister)
Family	Yan family [zh]

Daisy Yen Wu (Chinese: 吴严彩韵, born June 12, 1902 – died May 27, 1993) was a pioneering Chinese scientist. She was the first Chinese woman to work as a researcher in biochemistry (the study of life's chemistry) and nutrition.

Born in Shanghai, China, into a rich family, Daisy was taught English from a young age and encouraged to learn. She graduated from Nanjing Jinling Women's University in 1921. Then, she went to the United States and earned a master's degree in biochemistry from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1923.

After returning to China, she became an assistant professor at Peking Union Medical College in 1923. She married Hsien Wu in late 1924. They worked together, researching proteins and studying nutrition. Even after marriage, she continued to help with her husband's research as an unpaid helper until 1928. Daisy and Hsien Wu also wrote the first Chinese textbook on nutrition, which was used for many years.

While raising her children, Daisy Yen Wu saw that there weren't enough good schools. So, in 1934, she started the Mingming School (Chinese: 明明学校). This school aimed to give Chinese children a modern and complete education. In 1936, she also helped raise money to build a hospital for her old college, Jinling Women's College. She even earned a degree in French!

In 1949, her husband was in the United States and couldn't return to China because of the Chinese Communist Revolution. Daisy took their children abroad to join him. She got a job as a researcher at the Medical College of Alabama and worked with her husband again until he passed away in 1959.

In 1960, she moved to New York City. From 1960 to 1964, she worked for the United Nations Children's Fund, helping to create better nutrition standards. Later, she worked at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and St. Luke's Hospital Center, where she built important reference libraries. Throughout her life, Daisy Yen Wu created many scholarships in China, Taiwan, and the United States. These scholarships helped students continue their education. She passed away in 1993 in Ithaca, New York.

Early Life and Education

Yan Caiyun was born on June 12, 1902, in Shanghai, China. Her parents were Yang Lifen and Yan Zijun [zh]. Her mother was a Christian and raised their twelve children. Her father came from the wealthy Yan family [zh]. He worked in the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce and later managed the family businesses.

Daisy's grandfather, Yan Xinhou [zh], was an important industrialist. He advised a high-ranking official of the Qing dynasty, Li Hongzhang. He started China's salt industry and founded banks, factories, pharmacies, and tea shops across the country. Both her grandfather and father were also talented painters and calligraphers.

Her father believed education was very important. He hired university teachers to tutor his children in English and Chinese from a young age, even before they went to primary school in Shanghai.

In 1908, Daisy started at McTyeire School, a private school for girls. In 1913, her family moved to Tianjin. There, Daisy and two of her sisters, Lianyun [zh] and Youyun, got ready for high school entrance exams. She passed and enrolled in the Chinese and Western Girls' High School in 1914, finishing in June 1917.

She was accepted into Nanjing Jinling Women's University (later Ginling College) and graduated with honors in 1921. Daisy wanted to keep studying, and her father allowed her to go to the United States. In 1922, she began studying chemistry at Smith College. This is when she started using the English name "Daisy Yen."

During her summer break, she took chemistry, nutrition, and physics classes at the University of Chicago. The next fall, she enrolled in biochemistry courses at Teachers College, Columbia University. She studied nutrition, which was a very new field at the time, under famous professors like Henry Clapp Sherman and Mary Swartz Rose. She was especially interested in finding out how much vitamin was in different foods. She earned her master's degree in May 1923.

Career and Contributions

Early Scientific Work (1923–1928)

Daisy Yen was hired by the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foundation. She became an assistant professor in biochemistry at Peking Union Medical College in September 1923. The biochemistry department was new, and Daisy was only its second employee. She gave lectures and worked as an assistant to Hsien Wu, who was researching blood chemistry.

She helped him with his research on protein denaturation (how proteins change their shape). They published several papers together. These studies later became the foundation for Hsien Wu's important theory on protein denaturation, which he presented in 1931.

Daisy's contract was renewed, but when she and Hsien Wu decided to marry, she knew she would lose her job. The college had a rule that spouses could not work together. They married on December 20, 1924, in Shanghai, and Daisy Yen Wu resigned. They went on their honeymoon to the United States. Daisy planned to continue her studies and get her doctorate at Columbia. However, she found out she was pregnant while traveling in Europe with Hsien Wu. This meant she couldn't continue her advanced studies, and she returned to China.

Even though she wasn't paid, she continued to help in Hsien Wu's lab. She assisted with research, but her name was rarely listed as the main researcher on published papers. She also taught organic chemistry temporarily at the Xiehe Nursing School.

Daisy Yen Wu also did her own research on nutrition for the biochemistry department. This was likely the first time a woman in China had done such studies. She analyzed the chemical makeup of many Chinese foods. Vitamin research was still very new, but she found out the amounts of carbohydrates, fat, fiber, protein, and water in various foods.

With Hsien Wu, she began researching vegetarianism, which was the main diet in China back then. They used white mice for their studies, a method Daisy had learned in the US. They fed one group of mice a typical vegetarian diet of grains and vegetables. Another group ate grains and meat. They found that the vegetarian group had slower growth and problems like rickets (a bone disease). When they added foods like bell peppers, cabbage, mustard greens, or rapeseed to the vegetarian diet, the mice grew as well as the meat-eating mice and showed no signs of vitamin problems.

Their next big project was to study the diet of people in Beijing. They analyzed surveys from different groups like businesses, farms, and schools. They figured out how much carbohydrates, fats, and proteins people ate daily. They noticed that the Chinese diet, compared to a Western diet, lacked high-quality protein, calcium, phosphorus, and vitamins A and D. They concluded that malnutrition was causing many health problems in Chinese children, such as high rates of illness, shorter height, and learning difficulties.

Their teamwork led to 营养概论 (Introduction to Nutrition, 1929), which was the first textbook on nutrition in China. Hsien Wu also published 中国食物之营养价值 (The Nutritional Value of Chinese Food, 1928), which included Daisy's research.

Family and Helping Others (1929–1949)

In 1928, after her third child was born, Daisy Yen Wu stopped working actively in the lab. She focused on raising her children and helping her husband with his career. Within seven years of marriage, she had five children. She worried about the quality of schools available for them.

So, in 1934, she started the Mingming School (Chinese: 明明学校). Her goal was to offer a modern and complete education. She hired Wang Suyi, a Columbia University graduate, as the principal and a full-time teacher. A group of her friends managed the private school, and Daisy served as the treasurer.

Daisy Yen Wu was also part of various community improvement groups. In 1936, she worked with her sisters to raise money for a hospital at their old college, Jinling Women's College. She even went back to school herself, studying French at the Sino-French University [zh] and graduating in 1944.

In 1947, Hsien Wu went to the United States as a visiting professor at Columbia University. But he couldn't return to China because of the Chinese Communist Revolution. When the communists took over their home in Beijing in 1949, Daisy Yen Wu decided to take the children and join him abroad.

Life Abroad (1949–1992)

Daisy Yen Wu brought her children to Birmingham, Alabama. Hsien Wu had become the head of the biochemistry department at the University of Alabama. In 1950, she was hired as a biochemical researcher at the Medical College of Alabama. She worked with her husband again until he had a heart attack in 1953 and retired. They moved to Boston, where Daisy Yen Wu took care of Hsien Wu and put together their research. Between 1949 and 1959, they published four papers and presented three summaries at science conferences, mainly about how the body uses amino acids.

After Hsien Wu passed away on August 8, 1959, Daisy Yen Wu published his life story. In 1960, she moved to New York City to be closer to her children.

In the spring of 1960, Daisy Yen Wu was hired as a researcher by the Food Conservation Division of the United Nations Children's Fund. Her job was to test different foods and suggest ways to improve nutrition for children. In 1961, she created two scholarships at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan: the Yen Tse-King Memorial Scholarship (named after her father) and the Wu Hsien Memorial Scholarship (named after her husband). These scholarships were meant to help women students become doctors or any student of biological chemistry finish their education.

In August 1964, Daisy Yen Wu started working at the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. There, she built a reference library and organized materials to help the staff and students.

In 1971, she retired but still worked three days a week as a consultant in nutrition and metabolism for St. Luke's Hospital Center. Her work there was to set up the library for the New York Obesity Research Center. She also gave lectures on public health and nutrition at Columbia University.

Besides her work, Daisy Yen Wu started editing and updating the book 营养概论 (Introduction to Nutrition). She wrote eight new chapters, and a new edition of the book was published in Taiwan in 1974. It remained in print until the 1990s.

After relations between China and the US improved in the 1970s, Daisy Yen Wu returned to China. She visited relatives in 1980 and 1984. In 1983, she attended the 70th anniversary celebration of Jinling Women's University with her family and old classmates. That year, she set up a scholarship fund named after her husband. It was given by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences to support professors who had helped develop Chinese biochemistry and molecular biology.

She retired in 1987 and lived alone until 1992, when she moved in with her oldest son in Ithaca, New York. In 1993, to honor her husband's 100th birthday, she gave money to the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences to create a biochemical library and buy books. She also created a scholarship at Harvard Medical School. Both were named after him.

Death and Legacy

Daisy Yen Wu passed away on May 27, 1993, at Tompkins Community Hospital in Ithaca, after a heart attack. She was buried at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.

The research papers by Daisy and Hsien Wu on metabolism, diet, and nutrition were very important. They helped create the modern understanding of Chinese health and nutrition. At the time, their work was very influential in China and made the biochemistry department at Peking Union Medical College focus on studying nutrition. Their papers are now essential for understanding the history of nutrition studies in China.

The couple's son, Ray Wu, became a famous molecular biologist at Cornell University. He "developed the first method for sequencing DNA" and is seen as one of the founders of plant genetic engineering.

Besides the scholarships Daisy founded, the Hsien and Daisy Yen Wu Scholarship was created at Cornell to help graduate students finish their education. Harvard University also has a special professorship, the Hsien Wu and Daisy Yen Wu Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, named in their honor.

Selected Works