Drawing upon 60 years of practiced excellence in molecular biology, academia and viral and cancer research, Dr. Ru Chih Chow Huang is renowned for her expertise in anti-cancer studies. An educator at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, she was hired by the university as an assistant professor of molecular biology in 1965 and was promoted to associate professor in 1971. Since 1975, she has served as a full professor and, in 2011, she became an Inaugural Dr. William McElroy Honorary Research Professor. Commencing her professional career after receiving a PhD degree in 1960, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology for five years.
While working in academia, Dr. Huang has taken advantage of the unique opportunity to work with PhD students and postdoctoral fellows at Johns Hopkins University. As a result of these opportunities, she has not only taught medical and science students, but she has also learned significantly from their studies. Likewise, these opportunities presented her the ability to pursue one of her most passionate goals: the prevention, treatment and halt of the spread of human malignancies. Currently, in addition to her cancer research, she has been conducting research into vaccinations for COVID-19.
Over the course of her career, Dr. Huang has sat on the board of directors of the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, in Taiwan from 1987 to 1988. Additionally, she was appointed chair of the board of science counselors with the National Institute on Aging and the National Institutes of Health from 1980 to 1984. Despite her storied achievements, including her pioneer discovery in chromatin structure and function, “Classics in Life Science with 20th Century (ISI Press),” she considers herself to be a humbled individual and has always looked for the humanity in mankind. Her ultimate aspiration is to pass down her legacy, help humankind and research a cure for cancer.
Maintaining affiliation with the American Biophysical Society and the American Society of Biological Chemists, Dr. Huang attributes her immense success to various scientists she has encountered, including Prof. Maynard Hale at Virginia Tech, Prof. Joe Varner at the Ohio State University and Prof. James Bonner at Cal Tech. Likewise, she has been wholeheartedly influenced by her husband, Dr. Pien-Chien Huang who passed recently, to whom she had been married since 1956, and was also a professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Recently featured on the front cover of Marquis Who’s Who’s Millennium Magazine in 2020, Dr. Huang has also been highlighted in the Wall Street Journal and was named a Marquis Who’s Who Top Professional in 2019. A native of China, she immigrated to the United States in 1954 after receiving a bachelor’s degree and went on to have two children, Suber and Suzanne. She also has three grandchildren: David, Jennifer and Daniel.
