Ray Wu, 79; scientist created key rice strains
LOS ANGELES - Cornell University geneticist Ray Wu, a pioneer in genetic engineering who developed pest-, drought- and salinity-resistant rice strains that are poised for widespread use throughout the world, died of cardiac arrest Feb. 10 at Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 79.
The strains have the potential to sharply increase the supply of rice, which is the staple food for about half the world's population.
"Where rice is grown, everyone knows Ray Wu," said Cornell geneticist Susan McCouch. "He made enormous contributions to the development of rice transformation systems."
In 1970, Dr. Wu developed the first method for determining the nucleotide sequence of DNA. His technique was adopted and made more efficient by Frederick Sanger, who received the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his efforts.
During the 1980s, Dr. Wu pioneered techniques for transferring foreign genes into rice. In one study, he inserted into rice a potato gene for a protein called proteinase inhibitor II. The rice then produced the protein, which interferes with the digestive process of the pink stem borer, a common rice pest.
In a second study, he inserted a barley gene that enabled rice plants to produce a protein that makes them salt- and drought-resistant so they can grow in salty soil and recover quickly from dry conditions.
Dr. Wu said the technology could easily be extended to a variety of other grain crops.
The strains of rice produced by Dr.Wu are now being crossbred with commercial rice varieties in countries around the world to introduce these desirable traits into widely used strains. The resultant varieties could be in commercial use within as few as five years, McCouch said.
A native of Beijing, Ray Jui Wu came to the United States in 1948 at the urging of his father, who believed the son could receive a better education in the United States.
He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Alabama in 1950 and a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955. He worked at Penn and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining Cornell in 1966.
