ORIGIN AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT BEFORE 1949
Originally, biochemistry or physiological chemistry was a preclinical course in medical schools. At the beginning of the last century, medical schools were established all over China. Among them, one of the best known was Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) founded in 1917 with the endowment of Rockefeller Foundation. Its Department of Physiological Chemistry was established in 1919, headed by Hsien Wu in 1924 and he renamed the Department of Biochemistry in 1925. From 1920 to 1941, Wu and his colleagues in PUMC carried out pioneering work on blood analysis, protein nutrition, protein denaturation, immunochemistry, and so forth. His system of blood analysis marked the beginning of clinical chemistry. His book Principles of Nutrition published in 1929 was the first of its kind written in Chinese. His theory of denaturation based on a series of thorough studies was published in the Chinese Journal of Physiology in 1931 (1) and was republished in Advances in Protein Chemistry in 1995 (2) because the theory he proposed 64 years ago is surprisingly consistent with our present knowledge of protein structure. Through biochemical studies in his laboratory, he trained many visiting scholars and graduate students, and they afterwards became the leaders of biochemistry in other medical schools. Unfortunately, this golden period ended after Japan had invaded China in 1937 and occupied PUMC in 1942 after the Pacific War. During the anti-Japanese War, most universities and medical colleges moved to Southwest China but biochemical studies did not stop, even under very harsh conditions. For instance, the Department of Biochemistry in Central University headed by Ji Zheng (Libin T. Cheng) continued to do nutrition research in Chengdu. In 1938 and 1945, respectively, Bang-Zhe Ren (P. C. Jen) coming back from H. B. Lewis' lab in Ann Arbor and Ying-Lai Wang from Keilin's lab in Cambridge joined him, thus, making his lab a biochemical research center in the vast unoccupied area. In teaching, he had trained both undergraduate and graduate students using Bodansky's Physiological Chemistry and A Laboratory Manual of Biochemistry written by himself, which was also widely used in other medical schools. Before retirement, he was Professor and Head of the Department of Biochemistry at Nanjing University where he trained numerous outstanding biochemists. Now he is enjoying his retirement at the age of 110. Another active biochemical research center during the war was the Faculty of Science in Southwest Union University where biologists studying zoology, botany, plant physiology, and plant pathology gathered to continue their studies and publish their articles in the Biochemical Bulletin, an English language journal edited by the famous plant physiologist Pei-Song Tang and printed with a mimeograph.