Choh Hao Li

Chinese-born scientist and educator

• Pronunciation: JOH HOW LEE
• Born: April 21, 1913
• Birthplace: Guangzhou, China
• Died: November 28, 1987
• Place of death: Berkeley, California

Li was a leading researcher in the function of the hypophysis, or pituitary gland, a small gland at the base of the brain that secretes hormones that control many bodily processes. He isolated and purified many of the hormones secreted by the gland and is particularly known for synthesizing the human growth hormone.

Areas of achievement: Science, education

Early Life

Choh Hao Li was one of eleven children born to Mew-ching Tsui and industrialist Kan-chi Li. He graduated from high school in 1929 and earned a bachelor of science in chemistry from the University of Nanking in 1933. From 1933 to 1935, Li taught chemistry courses and conducted research with chemist F. H. Lee, eventually publishing a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society with Lee and fellow chemist Ward Evans. In 1935, he moved to the United States to attend a doctoral program at the University of Michigan, having been rejected from the University of California, Berkley, as that university’s administrators were unfamiliar with the University of Nanking.

Despite his initial rejection, Li visited his brother, a student at Berkeley, and while there showed his published paper to the head of the chemistry department. He gained acceptance to the program, albeit with a six-month probation period. While a graduate student, Li earned income as a part-time Chinese language instructor for local children. In 1938, Li earned his PhD and began working as a research associate with endocrinologist Herbert M. Evans at the University of California’s Institute of Experimental Biology (IEB). His research mainly concerned the adenohypophysis hormones, those secreted by the pituitary gland’s anterior, or front, lobe. The same year, Li married Shen Hwai Lu, also known as Annie, with whom he later had three children.

Life’s Work

In 1940, Li, Evans, and Miriam E. Simpson isolated a fertility hormone in the anterior pituitary gland of sheep that would later become essential to the development of oral contraceptives. Four years later, Li isolated a bovine growth hormone. While continuing to study the pituitary gland’s protein chemistry, he began to teach as well, becoming an associate professor at the IEB in 1947. He earned the Ciba Award, issued by the Endocrine Society, the same year. In 1949, Li was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to conduct research at Nobel Prize winner Arne Tiselius’s laboratory in Uppsala, Sweden. He also spent a month working at Cambridge University.

After returning from Europe, Li was made a full professor in the Biochemistry Department and director of the Hormone Research Laboratory at Berkeley. He won an award from the American Chemical Society in 1951 and isolated and purified another hormone, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), in 1953. In 1955, he won a prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and became a naturalized US citizen. In 1956, at the American Cancer Society’s annual meeting, Li announced that he and his colleagues had isolated the growth hormone secreted by monkey and human pituitary glands. Two years later, Li was a visiting lecturer at the National Taiwan University. He earned the prestigious Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1962. In 1967, his laboratory moved to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He received the American Medical Association’s Scientific Achievement Award in 1970, the American Cancer Society’s National Award in 1971, and the Nichols Award in 1979.

Li’s announcement of the synthesis of human growth hormone in 1971 was highly lauded. He is also credited with synthesizing an endocrine hormone called insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), which has a molecular structure comparable to insulin. In 1978, Li and a colleague, David Chung, discovered that beta-endorphin is produced by the pituitary gland and acts as a pain reducer.

Li continued to oversee the Hormone Research Laboratory at UCSF until his retirement in 1983, after which he took charge of the university’s Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology, where he remained until his death in 1987. In addition to his work as a researcher and a professor, Li edited a number of scientific publications. He served as an associate editor of the InternationalJournal of Peptide and Protein Research from 1969 to 1976 and as editor in chief for the next ten years. He also edited Hormonal Proteins and Peptides (1973–87) and was an executive editor for Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics (1979–87).

Significance

An accomplished scientist and educator, Li received many awards and honorary degrees over the course of his career and published more than one thousand articles and papers. His decades of work with the pituitary gland and the human growth hormone have aided in the treatment of arthritis and child growth problems, among other health concerns. After Li’s death in 1987, his papers, including correspondence and laboratory notes, were archived by the University of California.

Bibliography

Anderson, Susan Heller. “Choh Hao Li, Biochemist, Is Dead: Synthesized Hormone for Growth.” New York Times 1 Dec. 1987: D27. Print. Eulogizes Li and discusses his many contributions to the study of the pituitary gland.

“Hormone Synthesizer: Choh Hao Li.” New York Times 7 Jan. 1971: 23. Describes Li’s life and accomplishments in endocrinology.

Zulueta, Benjamin C. “Master of the Master Gland: Choh Hao Li, the University of California, and Science, Migration, and Race.” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 39.2 (2009): 129–70. Discusses Li, his connections to the University of California, and his research on and work with the pituitary gland.