George Kuo
George Ching-Hung Kuo is a scientist, who along with Michael Houghton, Qui-Lim Choo and Daniel W. Bradley, co-discovered and cloned Hepatitis C in 1989. The discovery of Hepatitis C led to the rapid development of diagnostic reagents to detect HCV in blood supplies which has reduced the risk of acquiring HCV through blood transfusion from one in three to about one in two million. It is estimated that antibody testing has prevented at least 40,000 new infections per year in the US alone and many more worldwide.
He graduated from the National Taiwan University in 1961 and completed his PhD in molecular biology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1972.
He was awarded the Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award and Dale A. Smith Memorial Award of the American Association of Blood Banks, and the William Beaumont Prize of the American Gastroenterological Association in 1994.
