In Remembrance of Dr. Ray Wu

I am a beneficiary of Dr. Ray Wu's visionary CUSBEA (China United States Biochemistry Examination and Application) program that allowed some 400 Chinese students to come to USA for Ph.D studies in the 1980's. Today, almost all of us are actively engaging in biomedical research in USA, China and elsewhere. Many have attained the once coveted professorship in premiere institutions of higher learning. Some occupy leadership positions of increasing influence in the biopharmaceutical industry. Quite a few have laid hold of prized acclaim to fame in their conquest of biosciences' cutting edge frontiers.

Dr. Ray Wu left us just before Valentine's Day. In a sense, he was valentine and benefactor to all CUSBEA fellows. Shortly after China opened her door to the West, Dr. Ray Wu, an accomplished geneticist and Cornell University professor whose pioneering innovation in DNA sequencing inspired Sanger to achieve Nobel prize winning breakthrough, petitioned Chinese authority to send some of the top young minds to USA for advanced study. CUSBEA program was thus born, as were the physics CUSPEA and chemistry CGP programs championed by others in the same decade.

The CUSBEA program abruptly ceased when the 1989 student-led pro-democracy movement was crushed in Beijing. CUSBEA fellows found themselves emotionally torn and physically stranded, reluctant to return to their bruised motherland. A few years later when the memory of pain subsided, CUBSEA fellows began journeying back for family visitation, academic exchanges, and even permanent resettlement in China. Time apparently is the tried and true healer of all pains.

Our hearts now pain again, but for a different kind. We grieve with the family and friends of Dr. Ray Wu. If one's legacy can be measured by what becomes of his influence, then all CUSBEA fellows stand to testify to the great vision and insight of Dr. Ray Wu. Those of us who are fortunate to be very close to him have been telling us how meek and humble a gentleman Dr. Ray Wu was. Indeed that was the first impression I got when I saw him for the first and last time during a reunion last year in Beijing.

Dr. Ray Wu did not really leave us. His kindred spirit indwells among us and impels us to take altruistic interest in others' well being. He reminds me of Christ whom I preach so often. My prayer is this: We long to meet him again, but for the first time by the pearly gate of heaven when we will have finished our race on Earth. May his soul find the blessed eternal peace.