biology

Wei Yang (biologist)

Wei Yang (biologist) is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wei Yang (biologist) rather than just read about it. In short: Wei Yang (Chinese: 杨薇; pinyin: Yáng Wēi; born 1963) is a Chinese-American structural biologist. She is a distinguished investigator at the National Institutes of Health and was elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2013.

Key takeaways

Wei Yang (biologist) belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wei Yang (biologist) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wei Yang (biologist) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Wei Yang (Chinese: 杨薇; pinyin: Yáng Wēi; born 1963) is a Chinese-American structural biologist. She is a distinguished investigator at the National Institutes of Health and was elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2013.

Early life and education Yang was born in Shanghai, China in 1963. She entered Fudan University in 1980, before transferring to Stony Brook University in the United States in 1983, where she earned her B.A. degree. She earned her M.A. (1985) and Ph.D. (1991) in Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics from Columbia University.

Career and research Since 1995 she has been a senior scientist in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the National Institutes of Health. Her research mainly focuses on DNA mismatch repair, translesion synthesis, and V(D)J recombination. Her lab discovered that DNA synthesis and RNA degradation reactions are propelled by cation trafficking and require transiently bound Mg²⁺ and K⁺ ions that are absent in the static structures of substrate- or product-enzyme complexes.

Awards and honors In 2011, the Protein Society honored Yang with the Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2013 and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015. She has naturalized as a US citizen.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wei Yang (biologist)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wei Yang (biologist) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wei Yang (biologist) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wei Yang (biologist) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wei Yang (biologist)

In research: Wei Yang (biologist) appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wei Yang (biologist) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wei Yang (biologist) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1963 births, 20th-century American biologists, 20th-century American women biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wei Yang (biologist) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wei Yang (biologist) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wei Yang (biologist) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wei Yang (biologist) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wei Yang (biologist) in simple terms?

Why does Wei Yang (biologist) matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wei Yang (biologist)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wei Yang (biologist).