HomeDate: 2024-12-11
Academician Wen-Hsiung Li, Distinguished Research Fellow at the Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, was awarded the prestigious Kimura Award in November 2024.
Dr. Li has made groundbreaking contributions to understanding molecular evolutionary processes and mechanisms through the integration of mathematical and experimental approaches. He pioneered methods for the comparative analysis of DNA and protein sequences and the construction of gene co-expression networks. Dr. Li was also the first to demonstrate low nucleotide diversity in humans and low genomic divergences between human and other apes. Furthermore, he authored the first two textbooks on molecular evolution, foundational works in the field.
The Kimura Award was established by the Motoo Kimura Trust Foundation for the Promotion of Evolutionary Biology in honor of Motoo Kimura, one of the most prominent molecular evolutionists from the 1960s to the early 1990s. Founded by Suzuki Motor Corporation about 20 years ago, the foundation presented the inaugural Kimura Award in 2016. This year, it presented its fourth award, with Dr. Wen-Hsiung Li as the sole recipient.
