A Life in Glycoscience – Honoring Professor Chi‐Huey Wong

Some scientists shape a field by solving its most difficult problems.Others change the problems that the field can ask.Professor Chi-Huey Wong has done both.This special issue of the Israel Journal of Chemistry honors Dr. Wong, whose work has helped transform carbohydrate chemistry from a discipline in which complex glycans were difficult to access and study into one that can generate defined structures, examine molecular recognition, and contribute directly to biological discovery and therapeutic development.Over the four decades of his career, Dr. Wong has repeatedly identified the practical barriers that limited progress in glycoscience and developed the conceptual and experimental tools needed to overcome them.Rather than accepting the structural complexity of carbohydrates as an unavoidable limitation, he has treated it as an invitation to develop new chemistry, new enzymes, and new ways of asking biological questions.His contributions to chemoenzymatic synthesis, programmable one-pot oligosaccharide assembly, glycan probes and microarrays, homogeneous glycoproteins, and glycoengineered antibodies have made complex carbohydrates more accessible not only as synthetic targets, but as precise molecular tools for understanding biology.His scientific leadership has been recognized through many of the field's highest honors, including the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, the ACS Arthur C. Cope Award, and the Welch Award in Chemistry.When I (YL) arrived at Scripps Research to start an independent career, I entered a scientific environment already deeply shaped by Dr. Wong.In addition to the new scientific building named after him, the Chi-Huey Wong Laboratories for Biomedical Research (CHWL, see picture), Dr. Wong's influence is present not only in the institute's legacy, but in the conceptual landscape of modern glycoscience.Across Scripps Research, UC San Diego, and the broader San Diego community, a vibrant network of researchers and collaborations continues to connect carbohydrate chemistry with chemical biology, medicine, and biotechnology.It is therefore a particular pleasure for my laboratory to be moving into the CHWL building and becoming Dr. Wong's lab neighbor.Dr. Wong was born and raised in Taiwan and received his B.S. degree in 1970 and M.S. degree in 1977 in Biochemical Sciences from National Taiwan University.His early work included protein science and peptide chemistry, including the total synthesis of snake-venom proteins.This biochemical grounding is visible throughout his later career: even at its most technically sophisticated, his chemistry has remained closely connected to biological function.In 1979, he moved to the