Wang Yinglai

Wang Yinglai was born in Jinmen, Fujian, in 1907 and was a biochemist; he died in 2001. He graduated in chemistry from the University of Nanking in 1929, took a doctorate at the University of Cambridge in 1941 and returned to China in 1945. In 1958 he set up the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and directed it until 1984. That year the institute proposed synthesising a protein; in January 1959 work on the synthesis of insulin began under the code 601. The Institute of Biochemistry, the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry and the chemistry department of Peking University worked together, with him as head of the collaborating group and Wang You as deputy head. On 17 September 1965 crystals of synthetic bovine insulin were obtained, and the State Science and Technology Commission held two appraisals, which found the product the same as natural bovine insulin in structure, biological activity, physical and chemical properties and crystal form. In 1981 another collaborating group that he headed completed the synthesis of yeast alanine transfer RNA.