Chinese Famous Chinese Americans

Dr. David Ho Won Presidential Citizen?s Medal in 2003 www.famouschinese.com

Internationally recognized HIV/AIDS researcher, Dr. David Ho, is the one of the recipients of this years Presidential Citizen's Medal for his remarkable service and accomplishments David D. Ho, M.D. is the founding Scientific Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, a world-renowned biomedical research institute. He is also the Irene Diamond Professor at The Rockefeller University. Born in Taiwan in 1952, he was educated in both Taiwan and the United States. His birth name, Da-I, means "great one" in Chinese ideograms, and he has said that his parents impressed upon him the importance of scholarship and education. Seeking an advanced degree, Dr. Ho's father immigrated to the United States from Taichung, Taiwan, when his son was three years old. Nine years later, the young Da-I, his mother and younger brother joined him in Los Angeles. Dr. Ho received his degrees from California Institute of Technology (1974) and Harvard Medical School (1978). Subsequently, he did his clinical training in internal medicine and infectious diseases at UCLA School of Medicine (1978-1982) and Massachusetts General Hospital (1982-1985), respectively. Although he was unable to speak English, Da-I Ho was enrolled in school. Thanks to that school's English-as-a-second-language program and American TV programs, he was speaking the language within a few months. After graduating from high school, he attended MIT for a year and then transferred to the California Institute of Technology, where he received the BS degree summa cum laude before enrolling in the HST program. In 1978, he received the MD as a member of the third graduating class of that program. He was a resident in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in 1981 when he came in contact with some of the first reported cases of what was later identified as AIDS. Dr. Ho was one of the first scientists to recognize that the disease was a virus. His fascination with finding the means to conquer the disease continued throughout the years he spent at Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine. Dr. Ho has been actively engaged in AIDS research for 20 years, and has published over 250 papers on the subject. Among an impressive list of seminal contributions to the field, he is perhaps most recognized for the elucidation of the dynamic nature of HIV replication in infected persons. This basic understanding led Dr. Ho and his coworkers to champion combination antiretroviral therapy, including the use of protease inhibitors, that has resulted in dramatic reductions in AIDS-associated mortality in developed countries since 1996. Dr. Ho continues to pursue therapeutic studies that attempt to eradicate HIV. In addition, his research team is now devoting considerable efforts to develop a vaccine to halt the spread of the AIDS epidemic. Early Treatment = Longer Lives: Ho shifted his work from treating late in the illness to finding ways to fight the disease early on. Ho devised the method of treating HIV with "cocktails". He theorized that combining the powerful protease inhibitor drugs with other HIV medications would provide a more effective way to treat the disease. He was right. With his system of treatment, deaths due to AIDS started to decline. Because of this work, he was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1996. Dr. Ho has received numerous honors and awards for his scientific accomplishments. He is the recipient of six honorary doctorates (including from Swarthmore, Tufts, Columbia, and University of Natal). He has been chosen as the commencement speaker at Caltech, MIT, and Harvard School of Public Health. Additional accolades include the Ernst Jung Prize in Medicine, Mayor's Award for Excellence in Science & Technology, the Squibb Award, and the Hoechst Marion Roussel Award. Dr. Ho has been elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Academia Sinica (Republic of China), and the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Science. Dr. Ho is also an honorary professor at both Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Currently, he serves on the Board of Overseers of Harvard University and Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology.