Tse Wen Chang 張子文 |
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Born |
Zhongli District, Taoyuan County, Taiwan |
August 25, 1947
Education |
National Tsing Hua University (B.S; M.S) Harvard University (Ph.D.) |
Known for |
Xolair anti-IgE therapy Antibody microarray |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Immunology, Biomedicine, Biotechnology |
Institutions |
National Tsing Hua University Tanox, Inc. Academia Sinica Immunwork, Inc. |
Doctoral advisor | Alfred L. Goldberg |
Tse Wen Chang (Chinese: 張子文; pinyin: Zhāng Zǐwén, born August 25, 1947) is an immunology researcher, whose career spans across academia and industry. His early research involving the Immunoglobulin E (IgE) pathway and antibody-based therapeutics lead to the development of omalizumab (also known as Xolair), a medication that has been approved for the treatment of severe allergic asthma and severe chronic spontaneous urticaria. Chang is a cofounder of Tanox, a biopharmaceutical company specialized in anti-IgE therapies for the treatment of allergic diseases. After Tanox's tripartite partnership with Genentech and Novartis was forged in 1996, Chang returned to his alma mater, the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and served as the Dean (1996–1999) of the College of Life Sciences. Chang was appointed by the Taiwanese government as President of the Development Center for Biotechnology (DCB) in 2000, and served as a Science and Technology Advisor of the Executive Yuan from 2002 to 2006. From 2006 to 2016, he was tenured as Distinguished Research Fellow at the Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica. He founded Immunwork, Inc. in 2014.
Chang was born and raised in Zhongli District, Taoyuan County, Taiwan in 1947. His ancestry traces back to Mei County, Guangdong Province, China. His father Chang Chun-an (張均安) spent his entire career working for the Taiwan Railroad Bureau. Chang's mother, Yeh Ting-mei (葉丁妹), was an elementary school teacher, who worked as a housewife after marriage to raise five children. Chang obtained a bachelor's degree (1970) and master's degree (1972) in chemistry at the National Tsing Hua University. Afterwards, Chang received a 4-year fellowship at Harvard University, where he did thesis research on protein degradation in the muscle during fasting with Professor Alfred L. Goldberg. Chang received his Ph.D. in 1977, and did postdoctoral research on T cell immune mechanisms with Herman Eisen at the Center for Cancer Research at MIT from 1977 to 1980.