Shen Yunkang

AWARDEE OF LIFE SCIENCES PRIZE

SHEN YUNGANG

Abstract

Shen Yungang (Y.K.Shen or Y.G.Shen ), a plant physiologist and biochemist, was born on Dec. 2, 1927 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.  After his graduation from the Department of Agrochemistry, Zhejiang University in 1951, he entered the Lab of Plant Physiology, Institute of Experimental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (the Lab of Plant Physiology became Institute in 1953), as one of the assistants of Professor H.C,Yin. At the beginning of 1950's, he worked on the transformation of starch in ripening and germinating grains and latter engaged in the study of photosynthesis in plants, both on the physiological aspects and its basic mechanisms.
In measuring the quantum requirement of photophosphorylation, he and his colleagues, G.M.Shen encountered an unusual phenomenon: When the light intensity was diminished below a certain threshold, the quantum yield of photophosphorylation became progressively lower while that of electron transport remained unchanged.  To study the underlying mechanism of this unusual phenomenon, they used the two-stage      photophosphorylation method to see which intermediate step was related to this      unusual effect.  From these experiments they discovered the existence of “high energy intermediate” of photophosphorylation in 1962.  This was independently discovered by Jagendorf and Hind (1963), who then proved that the high energy state was the proton gradient across the thylakoid membrane as proposed by Peter Mitchell's      chemiosmotic hypothesis in 1961, and thus gave the first experimental support to this      hypothesis.  Shen and his colleagues then found that there might exist different states of the high energy intermediate and these were the early preliminary clue in favor of the idea of localized proton or microchemisosmotic hypothesis.  Recently, they acquired new evidence from millisecond delayed light emission studies to support      such a suggestion.
From the study of the variation of P/O ratio of photophosphorylation in vivo and      the relation between the increasing ATP supply and the enhancement of      photosynthesis, Shen and his colleagues became interested in working on the problem      of the operation and regulation of photosynthetic apparatus.  He was invited by      “Physiologie Vegetale” in 1985 and “Photosynthesis Research” in 1994 to write      personal perspective reviews of their work.
In the spring of 1985, Professor David Hall asked Shen to join the United Nations      Environmental Program: “Bioproductivity and Photosynthesis in Natural Ecosystem      of the Tropics in Relation to Environmental Variables”.  Shen made great efforts to link this physiological study and his basic research on photosynthesis together with a common aim of knowing more about the efficiency of photosynthetic apparatus.  He was invited to give a lecture on the title “Some factors limiting photosynthesis in nature.” in the VIII International Congress on Photosynthesis in 1989.
In 1980, professor shen was elected as member of Chinese Academy of Sciences.      He has published nearly 200 papers, and in 1998 published a monograph with the title      “Dynamic Aspects of Photosynthesis” mainly based on work from their own lab.