Yuet Wai KanFRS (Chinese:簡悅威;Jyutping:Gaan2 Jyut6 Wai1; born June 11, 1936), is aChinese-Americangeneticist andhematologist. He is the currentLouis K. Diamond Chair in Hematology^[5][6] and aProfessor Emeritus at theUniversity of California, San Francisco.^[7] He is a former president of theAmerican Society of Hematology.^[8]

Kan is ofShunde,Guangdong, descent,^[9] and was born inHong Kong to the prominent Kan family. His father, Tong Po Kan,^[10] was a co-founder ofBank of East Asia,^[9] and had 14 children;^[11] Kan is the youngest. Kan's brother,Yuet-keung Kan, was theSenior Unofficial Member of theLegislative Council of Hong Kong and theExecutive Council of Hong Kong, and a former chairman of the Bank of East Asia.^[12]

Kan started his education at True Light Elementary School, not long before theJapanese occupation of Hong Kong duringWorld War II. He enteredWah Yan College, Hong Kong after the war and graduated in 1952.^[2] He then followed his father's wish and studiedmedicine in theUniversity of Hong Kong (HKU), staying at the residence ofMorrison Hall^[13] and obtaining hisBachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree in 1958, with a distinction inSocial Medicine, Medicine,Surgery andObstetrics and Gynecology.^{[2][1][14][15]}

The University of Hong Kong awarded Kan aDoctor of Science in 1980.^[1][14]

After spending 2 years atQueen Mary Hospital for residency and internship, at the advice ofDavid Todd, aprofessor at the HKU Department ofMedicine,^[16] Kan went to theUnited States in 1960 to work and be trained in various North American institutions. He first went to Peter Bent Brigham Hospital inBoston (now part ofBrigham and Women's Hospital)^[17] to work and learnhematology under Frank H. Gardner, during which he became interested in research.^[2] He then moved to theUniversity of Pittsburgh to finish his clinical training and residency under Jack Myers,^[2][18] and then joinedVernon Ingram at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology to learn abouthemoglobin.^[13] Kan then joinedRoyal Victoria Hospital atMcGill University inMontreal as a fellow in hematology underLouis Lowenstein.^[13][19] He became interested inthalassemia after attending to aninfant withalpha-thalassemia.^[19]

After the fellowship, Kan briefly teamed up with Frank H. Gardner again at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, to which Gardner recently moved. He moved again in 1970, when a former colleague of his at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital invited him to study thalassemia atBoston Children's Hospital,^[2] and became anassistant professor atHarvard University.^[20] In 1972, Kan went toSan Francisco General Hospital to become the Chief of Hematology Service, and was, at the same time, appointed anassociate professor at theUniversity of California, San Francisco (UCSF).^[15] In 1976, he became an Investigator at theHoward Hughes Medical Institute, a position from which he retired in 2003.^[21] Kan was promoted tofull professor in 1977 at the Department ofMedicine of UCSF, and was cross-appointed to the Department ofBiochemistry andBiophysics in 1979.^[15] In 1983, he was appointed Head of the Division ofGenetics and MolecularHematology at the Department of Medicine,^[20] and became theLouis K. Diamond Chair in Hematology.^[15][22]

Kan sat on the President's Committee on theNational Medal of Science, which reviews nominations for the award, from 1988 to 1990,^[23] and was the President of theAmerican Society of Hematology in 1990.^[24][25] He was also the President of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America from 1998 to 1999,^[26] and was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Croucher Foundation, Hong Kong, from 1991 to 2011.^[27]

In 1993, Kan was appointed to head the newly established Gene Therapy Core Center at UCSF.^[28]

Kan has also served on the Committee on Human Rights of theNational Academy of Sciences,National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine (nowNational Academy of Medicine) from 2000 until at least 2008,^[29][30][31] and was the Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology at theUniversity of Hong Kong from 1990 to 1994,^[29][32] which was dissolved in 2005.^[33]

Since 1994,^[16] Kan has been an advisor at the Hong Kong-based Qiu Shi Science and Technologies Foundation, which supports science inChina.^[34]

Kan is best known for his research in theetiology ofthalassemia, and has significant contribution to theprenatal testing ofhemoglobinopathy and the research insingle-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).^[35][36]

Kan and his collaborators found the deletion of a gene was the cause ofalpha-thalassemia,^[37] the first demonstration of its kind for any disease.^[15] He was also the first to establish that a singleDNAmutation could lead to a human disease, and the first to diagnose a human disease using DNA.^[38] His 1979 report on the cause ofbeta-thalassemia established the disease-causing ability of SNPs, where he found that anonsense mutation, a type ofpoint mutation, led to the truncation of thebeta chains of hemoglobin.^[39][40]

In prenatal testing research, he discovered, in 1972, thathemoglobin protein chains could be isolated fromfetal blood, and the presence of abnormal hemoglobin chains signifiedsickle cell disease, allowing for the detection of the disease before birth.^[41] Then, building on his finding that alpha-thalassemia was caused by a gene deletion, he designed a DNA-based test for the deletion,^[42] the first time a DNA test was used for diagnosing a human condition.^[2] In 1978, he discovered a SNP next to theHBB gene that is associated with theHBB mutation that causes sickle cell disease. Digesting this DNA sequence with specialenzymes (known asrestriction enzymes) yielded specific DNA fragments, the sets of which varied according to the SNP variation and, by association, the presence of the sickle cell disease-causing mutation,^[43][44] suggesting an indirect diagnostic method for the disease and marking the first use of SNPs ingenetic linkage analysis of human diseases.^[2]

In the recent decade, Kan has appliedgene therapy andgenome editing techniques to treat thalassemia, sickle cell disease andblood cancer.^{[45][46][47][48]}

Kan married Alvera Limauro in 1964 inBoston.^[13] They met each other on their first day at Frank H. Gardner's lab at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now part ofBrigham and Women's Hospital)^[17] in Boston, but did not started dating 2 years later.^[13] They have 2 daughters, Susan, alawyer inSan Francisco,^[4] and Deborah,^[4] a formerWall Street Journal reporter inHong Kong and the founder an online information platform forAlzheimer's disease called Being Patient,^[49][50] and 5 grandchildren.^[13] As of 2019, Kan and his wife live inSan Francisco.^[13]

The Y W Kan Professorship in Natural Sciences at theUniversity of Hong Kong was created in Kan's honor.^[76]

• 1936 births
• Alumni of the University of Hong Kong
• American geneticists
• American hematologists
• American medical academics
• American medical researchers
• American people of Chinese descent
• Fellows of the Royal Society
• Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Hong Kong emigrants to the United States
• Howard Hughes Medical Investigators
• Living people
• Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
• Recipients of the Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
• University of California, San Francisco faculty
• Members of Academia Sinica
• Members of the American Philosophical Society
• Fellows of the AACR Academy
• Members of the National Academy of Medicine
• Presidents of the American Society of Hematology

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