蕭介夫校長中、英文簡歷

蕭介夫博士，現任義守大學校長，是一位具有多樣才能、豐富創造力和生產力的頂尖科學家和學術行政領導者。他有令人欽佩的高度精力及熱忱，對於激發年輕的科學家是很重要的。於2008年11月蕭博士榮獲 TWAS Prize「發展中世界科學院」農業科學獎得獎人，此院並讚揚蕭博士在應用生物催化與生物技術上，將低價值農產品轉化為高價值生技產品與機能性食品，並且發現多種新功能基因可應用於改良農作物，包括抗病性與延長採後貯存時間等，對農業科學有重大貢獻。蕭介夫利用蛋白質工程技術，生產酵素「基因重組脂肪酶，用來催化油脂，並轉化為生質柴油，可降低過去依賴國外進口酵素的成本，製造過程中不會產生對環境有害物質，將生產出更具有環保及成本優勢的「綠色生質柴油」。

1977年自美國阿肯色大學學成返國，即投入教學與研究工作，先後擔任過國立高雄師大化學系系主任、海洋大學生物科技所所長、中央研究院植物所所長。在2004年獲選為國立中興大學校長與講座教授並於2007年連任。蕭校長致力於提升中興大學走出保守創造新局，在他的領導下中興大學成為台灣頂尖研究型綜合大學，尤其在農業生技領域聞名於國際。2011年中興大學校長任期屆滿後轉任中央研究院農業生技研究中心特聘研究員，於2012年2月1日被遴聘為義守大學校長。

蕭博士亦曾獲國科會傑出研究獎、傑出特約研究員獎、美國油脂化學會生物科技終身成就獎、美國科學促進會會士、美國UC DAVIS之史托爾傑出教授講座及國際生物催化暨農業生技學院院士等榮譽。曾任台灣生化與分生學會理事長、台灣國立大學校院協會理事長及中科產學訓協會理事長。目前並擔任南科產學協會常務理事，以及台灣「國際生物催化暨農業生物技術學會」首任會長。在國際重要期刊發表約180篇論文、主編8期國際專刊「New Biotechnology」的special issues、22項國內外專利及5項技轉，並編輯5本國際行銷專書他是一位致力於推動學術發展、和生物科技創新的卓越科學家和教育家。

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I was born in a poor Tainan farmer’s family. Through hard work, I graduated from Tainan First Senior High School with honor, received a BS degree (1970) in Agricultural Chemistry from National Taiwan University, and PhD degree (1977) in biochemistry from University of Arkansas, USA. I came back to Taiwan to start my academic career as associate professor in 1977 and then promoted to professor and chairman of the Department of Chemistry, National Kaohsiung Normal University in 1980.

Then I moved to the Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica, the most prestigious research Institution in Taiwan, to work as a research fellow in 1982. During 1985–1986, I was a visiting scholar at the Department of Applied Biological Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, to work on lipase biotechnology. In 1993, I was invited by National Taiwan Ocean University to establish the first Marine Biotechnology Institute in Taiwan and served as Director until 1996. I returned to Academia Sinica to serve as the Director of the Institute of Botany from 1996 to 2003. During this period, I have established a research group which is recognized as one of the world-leading team in the field of enzyme biochemistry and biotechnology, particularly in lipases and esterases. In the last 10 years, we have also expanded the research into post-harvest biotechnology, and have made important contributions to Taiwan's agricultural biotechnology. I coordinated a Taiwan research team to join the International Rice Genome Sequencing Project to complete the sequencing of rice chromosome 5, which was published in Nature (274; 337–345, 2005). The contribution in completing the rice genome sequencing certainly has profound impact in agricultural science and human welfare. In 2004, I became President of National Chung Hsing University (NCHU). With the collective effort of our colleagues, we have upgraded NCHU to be the only MOE selected Top-Research University in central Taiwan and one of the world leading universities in agricultural biotechnology. In collaboration with Dr. Ching Hou of USDA, we established the ISBAB and organized five ISBAB International Symposia in Taiwan. I am the President-Elect of ISBAB and co-Editor-in-Chief of the ISBAB Special Issues in New Biotechnology. I went back to Academia Sinica to become a Distinguished Research Fellow of Agricultural Biotechnology Research Center in 2011 and was appointed as the president and Distinguished Chair Professor of I-Shou University in 2012.

I have published over 180 international SCI papers with over 3,300 citation times, 17 patents and 3 technical transfers to industries. The major contributions of my research team are in the following:

A.       Biochemistry and biotechnology of lipase/esterases

Lipases and esterases are very efficient biocatalysts that not only regulate the metabolism of lipids and esters but also are widely used in industry for biotransformation. I have made many important contributions to our knowledge of the structure, function and applications of these important serine-hydrolase family enzymes. My achievement earns international recognitions and was invited to write two review papers in top-notched Journals (Progress in Lipid Research (43: 528-544, 2004); Lipids (39:513-526,2004))

i.              We discovered a novel multi-function arylesterase which has arylesterase, thioesterase and protease-like activities. This led to the discovery of a new GDSLS protein family. Further studies on the structure of another GDSLS member E. coli thioesterase revealed that flexibility in the active site is crucial for the multi-functions of these GDSLS enzymes. These discoveries pioneered the protein engineering of the enzymes in this novel family.

ii.              We demonstrated that the different properties of Candida rugosa lipase from various suppliers were a result of the different percent composition of five isozymes which are differentially regulated by culture conditions. A multiple mutagenesis method was invented to overcome the codon usage problem hampering CRL gene expression in industrial expression systems. This solved a long-standing dispute and has had a great impact on enzyme bioindustry.

iii.              We invented numerous new methods for the lipase-catalyzed synthesis of many important compounds such as carbohydrate esters, fatty acid esters, propylene glycol esters and diethanolamide. These novel enzymatic methods replace previous chemical methods and show potential for saving energy and reducing pollution, since they have high catalytic efficiency and specificity at ambient temperature. In contrast, conventional chemical methods require high temperature and produce undesirable byproducts.

B.       Plant functional genes and agricultural biotechnology

          i.              We characterized the active site of ACC oxidase, a key enzyme in ethylene biosynthesis, and used antisense ACC oxidase gene to extend the shelf-life of papaya fruit. We also cloned and characterized the first broccoli ethylene receptor and transferred the mutated ers gene to heterologus plants such as flowers to delay senescence and hence reduce postharvest loss of perishable agricultural produce.

         ii.              We discovered the novel plant tubby-like protein gene family which plays important functions in plant hormone and stress signaling through ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis pathway.

        iii.              We discovered an enzymatic method for simultaneous production of sweetness such as trehalose and high-protein food from crops. In collaboration with Dr. Su-May Yu, we transferred the amylopullulanase gene into rice and produced transgenic “sweet rice”, which expressed high amounts of the enzyme amylopullulanase. Without exogenous addition of amylases, the rice grain starch was completely degraded into syrup while the protein remained. This method has great promise for improving the nutrition of low protein crops and at the same time producing high value-added bioproducts for industrial uses, which greatly increases the added-value of agricultural products.

The achievement of my academic career has been recognized by many national and international honors and awards, including Distinguished Research Award of National Science Council, National Agronomy Award, AAAS Fellow (American Association for the Advancement of Science), Biotechnology Lifetime Achievement Award of American oil Chemists’ Society, Agricultural Science Prize of TWAS (Developing World Academy of Sciences), Merit Award and Fellow of International Society for Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology (ISBAB).