Yau-Huei Wei

Dr. Yau-Huei Wei graduated in June 1974 from the Department of Agricultural Chemistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. He joined the laboratory of the late Professor Tsoo E. King in September 1976 and earned his PhD degree in 1980 from the Department of Chemistry, State University of New York at Albany, New York, USA. He returned to Taiwan after working for one year as a postdoc at the Departments of Chemistry and Physics, SUNY-Albany. He was appointed as an associate professor during 1981-1985 at the Department of Biochemistry, National Yang-Ming Medical College, Taipei, Taiwan. He was promoted to full professor in 1985 and served as the chairman of the department until 1991. He also served as the Director, Common Instrumentation Center (1986-1989) and the Dean of Student Affairs (1989-1991) of the College. Dr. Wei was appointed as the Director General, Department of Life Sciences, National Science Council, Executive Yuan, Taiwan, 2001-2005. He was the Dean of Academic Affairs (2006-2008) and Distinguished Professor (2007-2009), National Yang-Ming University. Dr. Wei was appointed as the founding President of Mackay Medical College in August 2009, a post he will maintain until 2013. He has been actively participated in the promotion of international exchange and collaboration in biomedical research and mitochondrial medicine. Dr. Wei was one of the founding members of Asian Society for Mitochondrial Research and Medicine, and elected as the Vice-President (2002-2005) and President (2005-2008) of the Society. He has been elected for two terms as the President of Taiwan Society for Mitochondrial Research and Medicine (2006-2012). Since 2006, Dr. Wei has been a member of the editorial boards of Biochimica et Biophysica Acta-General Subjects. He has been also an editorial board members of the Journal of the Chinese Medical Association and Chang Gung Medical Journal. Dr. Wei\'s major research has focused on 'Molecular and cellular biology studies of mitochondrial diseases, cancer and age-related diseases” and 'The cross-talk between mitochondria and the nucleus and metabolic shift in the differentiation and aging of stem cells”. He was among the few investigators to demonstrate that mitochondrial function decline and mitochondrial DNA mutations are important contributory factors of human aging. His research team was one of the earliest groups to demonstrate that oxidative stress and oxidative damages elicited by mitochondrial DNA mutations contributes to the pathophysiology of many mitochondrial disorders. In the past few years, Dr. Wei and his students have established that mitochondrial biogenesis and respiratory function as well as antioxidant enzymes are upregulated in a coordinate manner in the process of differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells. His team has elucidated the molecular mechanism of the metabolic shift from anaerobic glycolysis to oxidative metabolism during human stem cell differentiation. Dr. Wei and his colleagues and students have published in SCI journals about 320 research papers and about 25 review articles in the fields of bioenergetics, free radical biology and medicine, molecular and cellular biology, mitochondrial medicine, male infertility, and aging research. Dr. Wei served as one of the editors for a special issue of Biochim. Biophys. Acta-General Subjects (volume 1800, issue 3, March 2010), which is dedicated to the Proceedings of the 5th ASMRM Conference held on November 6-8, 2008 in Tianjin, China. He also helped to publish in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (volume 1201, September 2010) the Proceedings of the 6th ASMRM Conference, which was held on October 30-November 1, 2009 in Taipei, Taiwan. With his assistance and serving as one of the guest editors, a special issue of Biochim. Biophys. Acta-General Subjects will be published in early 2012 as the Proceedings of the 7th ASMRM Conference held December 16-18, 2010 in Fukuoka, Japan.