Academician Wen-Hsiung Li received the 2024 Kimura award
Motoo Kimura was the world’s most famous molecular evolutionist from the 1960s to the early 1990s. About 20 years ago, the Suzuki car company established the Motoo Kimura Trust Foundation for the promotion of evolutionary biology, and in 2016 it gave the first Kimura award. This year was the fourth time that the foundation gave the award and Dr. Wen-Hsiung Li was the sole recipient.
Dr. Li was selected for his significant contributions to the elucidation of molecular evolutionary processes and mechanisms using both mathematical and experimental methods. In particular, he led the development of methods for comparative analysis of DNA and protein sequences and for constructing gene co-expression networks. He was the first to show low nucleotide diversity in humans and low genomic divergences between human and other apes. He wrote the first two textbooks for molecular evolution.
