China Vitae

Biography

Shen Yungang, male, Han nationality, is a native of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. He graduated from the Agricultural Chemistry Department of Zhejiang University in 1951.

A plant physiologist, Shen carried out experiments on the transition of carbohydrate with plans and proved that amylase could influence the ability of phosphorlyase to synthesize starch by resolving quickly the added starch. In doing so, he negated ideas that amylase had a direct prohibitive function.

In the 1960s, he started research on the mechanism of photosynthesis. This led him to discover the existence of an intermediate state of high energy during the process of photophosphorylation and advanced the notion that an intermediate state could exist in many forms. Shen also posited that the allosteric difference of coupling factors could affect the scattering and disappearing of the intermediate state of high energy and the efficiency of coupling. His research eventually led him to analyze the relation between the transitive function of energy and membrane structure.

A research fellow at the Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology, Shen was elected as an academician to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980.