AWARDEE OF LIFE SCIENCES PRIZE

YIN WENYING

Abstract

Professor Yin Wenying, an entomologist, was born in October 1922 in Pingxiang, Hebei Province, China.  Graduated from Department of Biology, National Central University, Nanking in 1947.  And then was appointed successively in the Institute of Zoology, Shanghai; Institute of Hydrobiology, Wuhan, and Shanghai Institute of Entomology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.  She was elected member of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991.
Her early work was on fish parasitology and freshwater fish disease control.  The     effective control measures to prevent or abolish the epidemic attacks of some serious     diseases of pond-fishes were found out and widely spreaded over the fish farming area     in China at that time.  She is one of the pioneer of the research field of freshwater fish parasites and disease control.
Since 1963, she devoted to the study on systematics of Protura. 164 species     belonging to 34 genera and 9 families, including 142 new species, 18 new genera and     4 new families were reported.  Based upon new evidences on the postembryonic     development of Sinentomon, she proposed a new conception on phylogeny of Protura     in 1983, and established accordingly a new phylogenetic system for the known 54     genera in the word, which has been widely accepted and used.  Through comparative     studies on the ultrastructure of spermatozoa of more than 20 species of Protura, she     found out that their characteristics are obviously different from that of insects, and put forward a question of “Whether Protura is really an insects?”, attracting great attentions from scholars at home and abroad.  According to the results of the     comparative studies on ultrastructural morphology of the internal organs of Protura, which are differ greatly with that of insects.  She has raised Protura from an Order belonging to the Class Insecta, to Class Protura, which is parallel to Insecta in 1996.
From early 1980s, Prof. Yin has actively initiated and organized research  projects on soil zoology in China.  Cooperated with nearly hundred zoologists and  entomologists of ten different units, through 10 years joint efforts, fulfilled the faunal investigation, the ecological experiments and toxicological researches of soil animals for the different climatic zones of China.
Prof. Yin has published more than 130 research articles and 4 monographs.  She  has been awarded 2 National Natural Sciences Prizes, 2 CAS Prizes of Natural  Sciences, and 4 prizes both of the National and CAS Prizes of Progress on Sciences  and Technology.