Xiangzhong "Jerry" Yang

YANG, Xiangzhong "Jerry" Xiangzhong "Jerry" Yang, who rose from poverty in rural China to become a cloning pioneer, died on Thursday, (February 5, 2009) after a long battle with cancer. Yang was 49. Yang was best known for the cloning of calf Amy at the University of Connecticut in 1999. Amy was the first cloned farm animal in the United States. However, Yang made many other contributions such as improving understanding of how old cells can become young again when fused into embryos or eggs stripped of DNA. His work at UConn showed products of cloned farm animals are safe to eat. He never forgot his roots in rural China, working to bring U.S. scientists to teach in China and forming a non-profit company which shipped embryos from champion dairy cows to farmers there. Yang survived famine in China in 1959 and 1960 and as a teenager was resigned to a life tending pigs when the government reintroduced college entrance exams at the end of the Cultural Revolution. His scores took him to Beijing Agricultural University where a second test won him the right to pursue a graduate degree in the United States. He excelled as an embryologist at Cornell University and was hired by the University of Connecticut at Storrs the year that Dolly the sheep was cloned in Scotland, setting off a furor over the ethics of the new technology. After the birth of Amy, Yang laid the groundwork for an attempt to clone a human embryo, which experts hoped would create embryonic stem cells that are an exact match of patients. These stem cells, derived from a patients own cells, can enable doctors to treat a host of diseases from cancer, Parkinson's Disease and diabetes. He also foresaw several promising new technologies that could accomplish the same goal without some of the religious and ethical objections. All the while, Yang battled cancer of the salivary gland first discovered in 1997 and which eventually killed him. Yang is survived by his wife Xiuchun "Cindy" Tian; his son Andrew; his parents, Wukui and Fengrong; his brothers, Huaizhong, Jizhong, Wenzhong; and his sister Meiying. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in memory of Dr. Yang for a purpose to be designated by his family. Please make checks payable to: The UConn Foundation, Inc., in honor of Dr. Jerry Yang, 2390 Alumni Drive, Unit 3206, Storrs, CT 06269, USA. A private burial ceremony will be held at the Storrs Cemetery on Thursday, February 19, 2009. A public memorial service will take place on Friday, February 20, at 10 a.m. in the Rome Ballroom on the UCONN campus (Lewis B. Rome Commons, 626 Gilbert Road, Storrs, CT 06268). For online memorial guestbook, please visit www.potterfuneralhome.com.